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INTRODUCTION 

THE inspiration for much of Robert 
Browning's work was found elsewhere 
than in Italy, yet the fact that many of his 
most popular shorter poems as well as his 
great crux *'Sordello" and his great master- 
piece "The Ring and the Book" blossomed 
from the soil of Italian life and art has brought 
into prominence his debt 'to Italian sources. 
Doubtless his many years of happy life with 
Mrs. Browning in Italy, as well as her enthu- 
siasm for the cause of Italian independence, 
served to intensify the interest and delight 
which he felt upon his initial visit to the land 
that was to become one of enchantment to 
him. 

His first journey thither was taken in 1838, 
with a view to becoming familiar with the 
scenes among which "Sordello" had been 
conceived. The special experience of this 
visit seems to have been the admiration awak- 
ened in him for the beautiful little hill-town 
of Asolo, — the play-kingdom of Caterina 
Cornaro. His first love among Italian cities 



\ 



vi INTRODUCTION 

he was wont to call it. So intense was his 
feeling for this town that he used frequently 
to dream of it. He described this dream, 
which had haunted him, to his friend, Mrs. 
Bronson: **I am traveling with a friend, 
sometimes with one person, sometimes with 
another, oftenest with one I do not recognize. 
Suddenly I see the town I love sparkling in 
the sun on the hillside. I cry to my com- 
panion, *Look! look! there is Asolo! Oh, do 
let us go there!' The friend invariably an- 
swers, * Impossible; we cannot stop.' *Pray, 
pray, let us go there,' I entreat. 'No,' per- 
sists the friend, 'we cannot; we must go on 
and leave Asolo for another day,' and so I am 
hurried away, and wake to know that I have 
been dreaming it all, both pleasure and 
disappointment." 

This deep sentiment for Asolo lasted to the 
end of his life, and was enshrined not only 
in his poetry but in the gift which the younger 
Browning made the town in memory of his 
father — namely, the establishment of the lace 
industry. A visitor to Asolo now will find 
"il poeta," as he is called, held in reveren- 
tial memory. There he heard, in his early 
manhood, the little peasant child singing a 
snatch of Sordello's poetry as he climbed his 
way up the mountain toward the sky; here 



INTRODUCTION vii 

he imagined the httle silk-winder Pippa scat- 
tering, all-unconscious, her uplifting influences 
in a '* naughty world," — **so far a little candle 
throws its )3eams," — and put her into a play 
of which Mrs. Browning said she distinctly 
envied the authorship; and here, at the very 
last, he and his sister spent royal days with 
their kind American friend Mrs. Bronson. 
He prepared his last volume, ''Asolando," for 
the press here, and dedicated it with most 
appreciative words to Mrs. Bronson. But a 
few short weeks later, upon the day this 
volume was published in England, he died 
in Venice. 

"In a Gondola" gives his impressions of 
Venice received on this first visit to Italy, 
though the poem was directly inspired by a 
picture of Maclise's, ''a divine Venetian 
work," the poet calls it, for which he was 
asked to write appropriate lines. These grew 
into the longer poem. 

Another visit to Italy in 1844 is made mem- 
orable in Browning's literary life by his poem, 
*'The Englishman in Italy." In this is given 
a wonderful picture of a sirocco on the plain 
of Sorrento. It has his usual dramatic touch. 
The storm is not described for itself, but, by 
the way, as he tries to comfort a little Italian 
girl, who is frightened at the black clouds. 



viii INTRODUCTION 

with stories of what he sees the peasant folk 
do when getting ready for the storm, and how 
nature is affected by the coming fury of wind 
and wave. 

He has nowhere given a more charming 
picture of ItaHan scenery unless it be in the 
poem, "Two in the Campagna": 

"The champaign with its endless fleece 

Of feathery grasses everywhere. 

Silence and passion, joy and peace. 

An everlasting wash of air — 
Rome's ghost since her decease." 

In 1846 he went to Italy with his wife, and 
during her life they lived md'§t of the time at 
Casa Guidi in Florence, with summer excur- 
sions to the Baths of Lucca and other places 
and an occasional winter in Rome. Up to 
the time of his continued residence in Italy, 
Browning had written some dozen poems on 
Italian subjects, including all the dramas and 
several of the Renaissance poems: "My Last 
Duchess," "The Bishop Orders his Tomb at 
Saint Praxed's," '^Pictor Ignotus," "In a 
Gondola." 

In 1855, after nine years in Italy, he pub- 
lished his two volumes called "Men and 
Women," with a dedicatory poem to Mrs. 
Browning. In this, Italian subjects are still 



INTRODUCTION ix 

prominent, and include some of his most im- 
portant work, as, for example, "Fra Lippo 
Lippi," *'A Toccata of Galuppi's," "The 
Statue and the Bust," ** Andrea del Sarto," 
"A Grammarian's Funeral." 

Shortly before Mrs. Browning's death, he 
had found one day on a book stall, in the 
Piazza san Lorenzo in Florence, the original 
parchment-bound record of the Franceschini 
case, which was after several years to be 
transmuted into his greatest work and his last 
work on an Italian subject of deep significance. 

This poem, with its beautiful apostrophe to 
his dead wife, his *' Lyric Love, half angel 
and half bird," and its marvelous insight into 
the most exalted heights of a woman's soul as 
portrayed in Pompilia, is a superb monument 
to her "of whom enamored was his soul," as he 
elsewhere expresses his abiding devotion to her. 

Unless we except "Cenciaja," "Pietro of 
Abano," in the "Parleyings," those with Bar- 
toli and Furini, and a few unimportant things 
in "Asolando" which remind one of a sort of 
Italian "St. Martin's Summer," he wrote no 
more great Italian poems. 

During the thirty years of literary activity 
left him, he went almost entirely to other 
sources for inspiration, and produced many 
poems which, in spite of the carping of some 



X INTRODUCTION 

critics at his later work, have won as wide an 
appreciation as anything he has written, such 
as "Herve Kiel," "Cahban," ''At the Mer- 
maid," "Balaustian's Adventure," and many 
others. 

Thus, it becomes evident that his ItaHan 
enthusiasm belonged to the days of his early 
manhood, when life held out to him its golden 
promises; to the succeeding days of the ful- 
filment of a rare happiness in his beloved 
land; and finally closed with a glorious swan- 
song in "The Ring and the Book" which 
has immortalized forever the two great pas- 
sions of the poet's life — his artistic enthu- 
siasm for Italy and his soul-love for Mrs. 
Browning. Of the one he wrote: 

"Open my heart and you will see 
Graved inside of it 'Italy.'" 

Of the other, in Venice, many years after her 
death : 

"Then the cloud-rift broadens, spanning earth that's under, 
Wide our world displays its worth, man's strife and 
strife's success: 
All the good and beauty, wonder crowning wonder, 

Till my heart and soul applaud perfection, nothing less. 

"Only, at heart's utmost joy and triumph, terror 

Sudden turns the blood to ice: a chill wind disencharms 
All the late enchantment ! What if all be error — 

If the halo irised round my head were, Love, thine arms.'* 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I 

PAGE 

The Dawn of the Renaissance 1 

CHAPTER n 

Glimpses of Political Life 58 

CHAPTER III 

The Italian Scholar 166 

CHAPTER IV 

The Artist and His Art 209 

CHAPTER V 

Pictures of Social Life 287 



XI 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

A Gondola Frcmiis'piece 

FACING PAGE 

Statue of Dante in the Ufizzi, Florence .... 6 

Arena at Verona 20 

Gate of Bosari, Verona (1600 years old) .... 42 

The Duomo, Florence 70 

Porto Romano, Florence 88 

Turin 114 

Florence, Old and New: Old Gate and Triumphal Arch 210 

The Campanile 220 

Sculpture from Campanile Representing Agriculture . 224 

Coronation of the Virgin, by Fra Angelico .... 240 

Coronation of the Virgin, by Fra Lippo Lippi . . 248 

Portrait of Andrea del Sarto, by Himself .... 262 ' 

The Annunciation, by Andrea del Sarto .... 268 - 

Piazza del Popolo, Rome 326 

Church of San Lorenzo, Rome 342 

Statue of Duke Ferdinand, Florence 364 

Venice 368 

Saint Mark's, Venice. Before the Fall of the Tower 372 

Interior of St. Mark's, Venice 376 

The Rialto — "Shylock's Bridge," at Venice ... 380 ^ 



xiu 



BROWNING'S ITALY 



BROWNING'S ITALY 



THE DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 

"Love's undoing 
Taught me the worth of love in man's estate. 
And what proportion love should hold with power 
In his right constitution: love preceding 
Power, and with much power, always much more love.'* 

— Paracelsus. 

IN the Italy of History and Biography the 
name of Sordello, the ItaKan troubadour, 
is hardly known; but in the Italy of Browning 
he is one of the most conspicuous figures, and 
stands for the first faint streaks of daybreak 
of that great movement in art and literature 
known as the Italian Renaissance. He is 
celebrated by Browning as the forerunner of 
Dante, whose full dawn splendor would have 
blotted out this earlier, lesser light completely 
had it not been that the great poet himself 
mentions the lesser one several times in his 
Divine Comedy and elsewhere, with enthu- 
siasm. 

Though there is no mention of Sordello in 
ordinary histories, many conflicting accounts 



2 BROWNING'S ITALY 

exist of him in early Italian archives, and 
many of the commentators of Dante have had 
their say about him, so that to any one bury- 
ing himself in Sordello literature this poet 
looms up large in the perspective of his time 
— so large, in fact, that Justin H. Smith 
writes of him in "The Troubadours at 
Home": 

" Nothing in the life or the times of Sordello 
was so extraordinary as the trail of glory that 
perpetuated his fame, and we must end as 
we began by exclaiming: What an extraor- 
dinary destiny!" 

The real Sordello — that is, as far as he is 
discoverable from the conflicting accounts — 
was one of many Italian troubadours who 
flourished in the twelfth and thirteenth cen- 
turies. He was born in Goito, a quiet little 
town, nine or ten miles from Mantua, on the 
right bank of the Mincio. This town had 
strong walls and a castle, and here, as in 
Browning's poem, the young Sordello spent 
his early years. It is not long, however, ere 
he comes before the eyes of men — not as 
the hyper-sensitive poet, with complicated 
psychological makeup, which Browning de- 
picts, but as a brawler in taverns. From 
this he goes on to an elopement with Cunizza, 
the wife of Count Richard, under peculiar 



DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 3 

circumstances. Sordello had attached him- 
self to the Court of Richard, which was held 
both in Mantua and Verona, and soon became 
the close friend of this liberal and cultured 
Count. But Ecelin, at first a friend of Rich- 
ard's, — the two having married sisters, — 
later desired to injure his brother-in-law, and 
so arranged with Sordello that he should run 
away with Richard's wife. Later we see him 
carrying off a lady without the knowledge of 
her family and marrying her. Thereupon 
the lady's family, the Strassos, joined with 
the partisans of Count Richard and waged 
such persistent warfare against him that he 
found it necessary to protect himself with a 
large troop. 

Then we hear of him journeying through 
Italy and France, Spain and Portugal, preach- 
ing the doctrine of pleasure wherever he goes, 
and evidently following his own preachments 
if we may trust accounts. Drifting to Prov- 
ence again, after a stay at Rodez, he attaches 
himself to Charles of Anjou, and becomes 
prominent in public affairs. When Charles 
invaded Italy, to seize the crown of Naples 
and Sicily, Sordello assisted him and received 
as his reward no less than five castles. To- 
ward the last of his life he falls into pleasant 
relations with the Pope, and turns his atten- 



4 BROWNING'S ITALY 

tion from love-poems to a long poem of a 
didactic nature in which he tells young 
nobles how to win God and the world. Justin 
H. Smith rather fiercely describes him as a 
"bold, unprincipled, licentious, and unflinch- 
ingly practical adventurer," who yet left a 
remarkable impress upon his own age and 
the ages to come. He sums up his career 
with graphic force as a "man who won his 
fame by singing in a foreign tongue upon a 
foreign soil, who was enriched by fighting 
against Italy for a Gallic oppressor, and who 
in spite of this is mentioned by Dante as 
the ideal patriot, the embodiment of Ital- 
ian aspirations. This error so thoroughly 
planted throve on the ignorance of Dante's 
commentators, and still more upon the in- 
ventive ability of Aliprandi; and eventually 
Emeric David thought that he found three 
distinct men in the inflated volumes of his 
legend." 

So much for the real Sordello! Brown- 
ing's imagination was evidently fired by 
Dante's enthusiasm, and in creating his char- 
acter of Sordello the poet seized upon any 
hints in the accounts that best fitted into his 
conception of the sort of person the fore- 
runner of Dante should be, taking his cue 
from Dante's reference to Sordello in the 



DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 5 

sixth book of the "Purgatorio," and from a 
prose writing, "De Vulgari Eloquentia." The 
passage in the ** Purgatorio " is as follows: 

"'But yonder there behold! a soul that stationed 
All, all alone is looking hitherward; 
It will point out to us the quickest way.* 
We came up onto it; O Lombard soul, 

How lofty and disdainful thou didst bear thee, 
And grand and slow in moving of thine eyes. 

"Nothing whatever did it say to us. 
But let us go our way, eyeing us only 
After the manner of a couchant lion; 

Still near to it Virgilius drew, entreating 
That it would point us out the best ascent; 
And it replied not unto his demand. 

But of our native land and of our life 

It questioned us; and the sweet Guide began: 
'Mantua,' — and the shade, all in itself recluse. 

Rose tow'rds him from the place where first it was. 
Saying: 'O Mantuan, I am Sordello 
Of thine own land ! ' and one embraced the other. 

"That noble soul was so impatient, only 
At the sweet sound of his own native land. 
To make its citizen glad welcome there." 

In the "De Vulgari Eloquentia," Dante 
declares that Sordello excelled in all kinds of 
composition and that he helped to form the 
Tuscan tongue by some happy attempts 
which he made in the dialects of Cremona, 



6 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Brescia, and Verona — cities not far re- 
moved from Mantua. 

From such meager material as this Brown- 
ing evolves a being who comprises in his own 
soul all the complex possibilities of the coming 
quickening of the human mind and spirit 
which was so remarkable a feature of the 
intellectual and artistic life of the fourteenth, 
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and which, 
taking its rise in Italy, made Italy the beacon 
light for the rest of Europe. 

Dante's feeling for Sordello is intensified 
tenfold in the modern poet's attitude, who 
thus shows forth the relation of Sordello to 
Dante, as he conceives it and as he develops 
it in his poem. 

'* For he — for he. 
Gate-vein of this hearts' blood of Lombardy, 
(If I should falter now) — for he is thine! 
Sordello, thy forerunner, Florentine! 
A herald-star I know thou didst absorb 
Relentless into the consummate orb 
That scared it from its right to roll along 
A sempiternal path with dance and song 
Fulfilling its allotted period, 
Serenest of the progeny of God — 
Who yet resigns it not! His darling stoops 
With no quenched lights, desponds with no blank troops 
Of disenfranchised brilliances, for, blent 
Utterly with thee, its shy element 
Like thine upburneth prosperous and clear. 




Statue of Dante in the Ufizzi, Florence. 



DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 7 

Still, what if I approach the august sphere 

Named now with only one name, disentwine 

That under-current soft and argentine 

From its fierce mate in the majestic mass 

Leavened as the sea whose fire was mixt with glass 

In John's transcendent vision, — launch once more 

That lustre ? Dante, pacer of the shore 

Where glutted hell disgorgeth filthiest gloom, 

Unbitten by its whirring sulphur-spume — 

Or whence the grieved and obscure waters slope 

Into a darkness quieted by hope; 

Plucker of amaranths grown beneath God's eye 

In gracious twilights where his chosen lie, — 

I would do this! If I should falter now!" 

The Sordello of Browning has the latent 
power to be a creator in poetry and a leader 
in the cause of patriotism, but so many con- 
flicting forces contend for mastery within 
him that his life is spent mostly in unraveling 
the problems of his soul. The tangled strands 
of Sordello's psychology, as Browning has 
made him, have been the despair of many 
readers and the joy of the few who have had 
the patience to untangle the strands and 
receive the reward of a full revelation of the 
soul-struggles of this sensitive, vacillating 
and tortured being. For both classes of 
readers he has thus attained an immortality 
more lasting than any bestowed upon him by 
Aliprandi, or other verbose Chroniclers. 



8 BROWNING'S ITALY 

To add to the complexities of the poem, 
Sordello has been placed by Browning in the 
historical setting of a period distinguished 
for its chaotic political conditions. Guelf 
and Ghibelline are names with which w^e 
become familiar at school, but they seldom 
are more than names, and when we pick 
up a poem wherein these names and the 
political struggles they stand for are talked 
of with the familiarity with which we might 
discuss the last dog show, the effect is be- 
wildering indeed. 

Yet, in spite of all this, there are clear, 
sharp-cut pictures scattered throughout the 
poem, and one may gain through the 
poet's eyes many a vivid glimpse of the life 
and social conditions of thirteenth century 
Italy. 

The birthplace of Sordello is introduced 
to us in the following beautiful description: 

"In Mantua territory half is slough, 
Half pine-tree forest; maples, scarlet oaks 
Breed o'er the river-beds; even Mincio chokes 
With sand the summer through: but 'tis morass 
In winter up to Mantua walls. There was, 
Some thirty years before this evening's coil. 
One spot reclaimed from the surrounding spoil, 
Goito; just a castle built amid 
A few low mountains; firs and larches hid 
Their main defiles, and rings of vineyard bound 



DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 9 

The rest. Some captured creature in a pound. 

Whose artless wonder quite precludes distress. 

Secure beside in its own loveliness. 

So peered with airy head, below, above. 

The castle at its toils, the lapwings love 

To glean among at grape-time." 

The poet then proceeds to the inside of the 
castle where he represents Sordello as having 
passed his boyhood. 

"Pass within. 
A maze of corridors contrived for sin, 
Dusk winding-stairs, dim galleries got past. 
You gain the inmost chambers, gain at last 
A maple-panelled room; that haze which seems 
Floating about the panel, if there gleams 
A sunbeam over it, will turn to gold 
And in light-graven characters unfold 
The Arab's wisdom everywhere; what shade 
Marred them a moment, those slim pillars made. 
Cut hke a company of palms to prop 
The roof, each kissing top entwined with top. 
Leaning together; in the carver's mind 
Some knot of bacchanals, flushed cheek combined 
With straining forehead, shoulders purpled, hair 
Diffused between, who in a goat-skin bear 
A vintage; graceful sister-palms! But quick 
To the main wonder, now. A vault, see; thick 
Black shade about the ceiling, though fine slits 
Across the buttress suffer light by fits 
Upon a marvel in the midst. Nay, stoop — 
A dullish gray-streaked cumbrous font, a group 
Round it, — each side of it, where'er one sees, — • 



10 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Upholds it; shrinking Caryatides 

Of just-tinged marble like Eve's lilied flesh 

Beneath her maker's finger when the fresh 

First pulse of life shot brightening the snow. 

The font's edge burthens every shoulder, so 

They muse upon the ground, eyelids half closed; 

Some, with meek arms behind their backs disposed. 

Some, crossed above their bosoms, some, to veil 

Their eyes, some, propping chin and cheek so pale. 

Some, hanging slack an utter helpless length 

Dead as a buried vestal whose whole strength 

Goes when the grate above shuts heavily. 

So dwell these noiseless girls, patient to see. 

Like priestesses because of sin impure 

Penanced forever, who resigned endure. 

Having that once drunk sweetness to the dregs. 

And every eve, Sordello's visit begs 

Pardon for them: constant as eve he came 

To sit beside each in her turn, the same 

As one of them, a certain space: and awe 

Made a great indistinctness till he saw 

Sunset slant cheerful through the buttress-chinks. 

Gold seven times globed; surely our maiden shrinks 

And a smile stirs her as if one faint grain 

Her load were lightened, one shade less the strain 

Obscured her forehead, yet one more bead slipt 

From off the rosary whereby the crypt 

Keeps count of the contritions of its charge? 

Then with a step more light, a heart more large, 

He may depart, leave her and every one 

To linger out the penance in mute stone." 

I am told by an authority in Italian art 
that such a fountain could not have existed 



DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 11 

in Italy in Sordello's time since caryatid 
figures were not introduced from Greece 
until the fifteenth century. The poet refers 
to this fountain again later on as a Messina 
Marble, 

"Like those Messina marbles Constance took 
Delight in, or Taurello's self conveyed 
To Mantua for his mistress, Adelaide, — 
A certain font with caryatides 
Since cloistered at Goito." 

However that may be, their use by Browning 
as a subtly suggestive force in the education 
of the mind of the young Sordello is much 
more effective than if he had taken him 
through a University course such as he 
might have had even in those early days. 

The rest of his education was derived 
from nature. 

"... beyond the glades 
On the fir-forest border, and the rim 
Of the low range of mountain, was for him 
No other world: but this appeared his own 
To wander through at pleasure and alone. 
The castle, too, seemed empty; far and wide 
Might he disport; only the northern side 
Lay under a mysterious interdict — 
Slight, just enough remembered to restrict 
His roaming to the corridors, the vault 
Where those font-bearers expiate their fault, 
The maple-chamber, and the little nooks 
And nests, and breezy parapet that looks 



12 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Over the woods to Mantua: there he strolled. 
Some foreign women-servants, very old, < 

Tended and crept about him — all his clue 
To the world's business and embroiled ado 
Distant a dozen hill-tops at the most." 

Passing from the particular individual life 
described here we may next get a view of 
Sordello upon his first contact with the social 
life of the time when, wandering one day 
beyond his usual range, he comes upon a 
Court of Love where Palma, the girl he has 
caught a glimpse of in the castle, is to choose 
her minstrel. A vision of her draws him on 
until he chances upon a "startling spectacle." 

"Mantua, this time! Under the walls — a crowd 
Indeed, real men and women, gay and loud 
Round a pavihon. How he stood!" 

"What next? The curtains see 
Dividing! She is there; and presently 
He will be there — the proper You, at length — 
In your own cherished dress of grace and strength: 

It was a showy man advanced; but though 
A glad cry welcomed him, then every sound 
Sank and the crowd disposed themselves around, 
— *This is not he! Sordello felt; while, 'Place 
For the best Troubadour of Boniface!* 
Hollaed the Jongleurs, — 'Eglamor, whose lay 
Concludes his patron's Court of Love to-day!' 



DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 13 

. . . Has he ceased 
And, lo, the people's frank applause half done, 
Sordello was beside him, had begun 
(Spite of indignant twitchings from his friend 
The Trouvere) the true lay with the true end. 
Taking the other's names and time and place 
For his. On flew the song, a giddy race. 
After the flying story; word made leap 
Out word, rhyme — rhyme; the lay could barely keep 
Pace with the action visibly rushing past: 
Both ended. Back fell Naddo more aghast 
Than some Egyptian from the harassed bull 
That wheeled abrupt and, bellowing, fronted full 
His plague, who spied a scarab 'neath the tongue. 
And found 'twas Apis' flank his hasty prong 
Insulted. But the people — but the cries. 
The crowding round, and proffering the prize! 
— For he had gained some prize. He seemed to shrink 
Into a sleepy cloud, just at whose brink 
One sight withheld him. There sat Adelaide, 
Silent; but at her knees the very maid 
Of the North Chamber, her red lips as rich, 
The same pure fleecy hair; one weft of which, 
Golden and great, quite touched his cheek as o'er 
She leant, speaking some six words and no more. 
He answered something, anything; and she 
Unbound a scarf and laid it heavily 
Upon him, her neck's warmth and all. Again 
Moved the arrested magic; in his brain 
Noises grew, and a light that turned to glare, 
And greater glare, until the intense flare 
Engulfed him, shut the whole scene from his sense. 
And when he woke 'twas many a furlong thence. 
At home; the sun shining his ruddy wont; 



14 BROWNING'S ITALY 

The customary birds '-chirp; but his front 

Was crowned — was crowned ! Her scented scarf around 

His neck! "Whose gorgeous vesture heaps the ground? 

A prize ? He turned, and peeringly on him 

Brooded the women-faces, kind and dim, 

Ready to talk — ' The Jongleurs in a troop 

Had brought him back, Naddo, and Squarcialupe 

And Tagliafer; how strange! a childhood spent 

In taking, well for him, so brave a bent! 

Since Eglamor,' they heard, 'was dead with spite,* 

And Palma chose him for her minstrel." 

In calling this poetical contest in which 
Sordello engaged a Court of Love, Brown- 
ing has adopted a term which should properly 
be applied to a court where difficult questions 
in the rigid etiquette of chivalric love were 
decided. Though we read of such Courts 
in literature recent investigators of the sub- 
ject declare that no such Courts existed, the 
first mention of them occurring in a book by 
Martial of Auvergne three hundred years 
later than they were said to have flourished. 

Justin H. Smith in a note to his "Trouba- 
dours at Home," points out that the silence 
of the troubadours is especially convincing 
against the alleged Courts, because we often 
see them feeling the need of such a tribunal 
and finding themselves compelled to choose 
their own arbiters. Further, these arbiters 
were men rather oftener than women, whereas 



DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 15 

the Courts were supposed to have consisted 
of women only. 

Browning really has in mind the poetical 
tournaments of the Middle Ages, held at a 
Court where a presiding lady acted as judge, 
awarding the laurel crown and other prizes, 
usually rich raiment, as the poet intimates, 
to the poet who sang best — all the con- 
testants taking the same theme. 

Palma, who figures here, is Browning's 
substitution for the Cunizza of the biogra- 
phies. She is the betrothed of Count Richard, 
but loves Sordello who turns out to be the 
son of Taurello, head of the Ghibelline 
party, according to our poet. As we shall 
see later, she determines to marry Sordello 
but his death prevents it. 

A stirring historical picture is brought be- 
fore us in this description of a scene in Verona, 
later in the life of Sordello, where he reaches 
the turning point in his career. 

"Lo, the past is hurled 
In twain: up-thrust, out-staggering on the world. 
Subsiding into shape, a darkness rears 
Its outline, kindles at the core, appears 
Verona. 'Tis six hundred years and more 
Since an event. The Second Friedrich wore 
The purple, and the Third Honorius filled 
The holy chair. That autumn eve was stilled: 
A last remains of sunset dimly burned 



16 BROWNING'S ITALY 

O'er the far forests, like a torch-flame turned 

By the wind back upon its bearer's hand 

In one long flare of crimson; as a brand, 

The woods beneath lay black. A single eye 

From all Verona cared for the soft sky. 

But, gathering in its ancient market-place. 

Talked group with restless group; and not a face 

But wrath made livid, for among them were 

Death's staunch purveyors, such as have in care 

To feast him. Fear had long since taken root 

In every breast, and now these crushed its fruit. 

The ripe hate, like a wine: to note the way 

It worked while each grew drunk! Men grave and gray 

Stood, with shut eyelids, rocking to and fro, 

Letting the silent luxury trickle slow 

About the hollows where a heart should be; 

But the young gulped with a delirious glee 

Some foretaste of their first debauch in blood 

At the fierce news: for, be it understood, 

Envoys apprised Verona that her prince. 

Count Richard of Saint Boniface, joined since 

A year with Azzo, Este's Lord, to thrust 

Taurello Salinguerra, prince in trust 

With Ecelin Romano, from his seat 

Ferrara, — over zealous in the feat 

And stumbling on a peril unaware. 

Was captive, trammelled in his proper snare. 

They phrase it, taken by his own intrigue. 

Immediate succor from the Lombard league 

Of fifteen cities that affect the Pope, 

For Azzo, therefore, and his fellow-hope 

Of the Guelf cause, a glory overcast! 

Men's faces, late agape, are now aghast. 

'Prone is the purple pavis; Este makes 



DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 17 

Mirth for the devil where he undertakes 
To play the Ecelin; as if it cost 
Merely your pushing by to gain a post 
Like his! The patron tells ye, once for all. 
There be sound reasons that preferment fall 
On our beloved.' . . . 

'Duke o' the Rood, why not?' 

This passage places before us a crisis in 
the struggles of the Guelfs and the Ghibel- 
Hnes. It will be worth while to pause a 
moment here to try and gain a clear notion 
of the historical events that form the back- 
ground of the poem. 

Various origins of the terms Guelf and 
GhibelHne have been suggested, but the 
most authentic is probably that sanctioned 
by Cabot's History of Italy, which traces 
their derivation to Germany. Here they had 
been the rallying words of faction for more 
than half a century before they appeared on 
Italian soil. The name of Guelf belonged 
to an illustrious family, several of whom 
had been dukes of Bavaria in the tenth and 
eleventh centuries. The heiress of the last 
of these intermarried with a younger son of 
the house of Este, a noble family settled near 
Padua, and the owners of great estates on 
each bank of the lower Po. The name of 
Ghibelline is supposed to have been derived 



18 BROWNING'S ITALY 

from a village in Franconia, whence Conrad 
the Salic came, the progenitor, through females, 
of the Suabian emperors. At the election of 
Lothaire in 1125, the Suabian family were 
disappointed of what they considered almost 
an hereditary possession; and at this time a 
hostility appears to have commenced be- 
tween them and the house of Guelf, which 
was nearly related to Lothaire. The elder 
branch of this house flourished in Italy. 
When, about the year 1200, the cities of 
Lombardy wanted some designations by which 
they could distinguish the two leading par- 
ties, and though full of mutual animosity 
had no general subject of contention, they 
chose these appellations. Generally speak- 
ing, the Guelf s were on the side of the 
Pope and the Ghibellines on the side of the 
Emperor. 

At the time when the second Frederick 
wore the purple, and the third Honorius was 
Pope, the contest between Pope and Emperor 
was nearing that climax which was to end in 
the downfall of the temporal power in Italy. 

Frederick II was one of the most remark- 
able figures in Italian history, and though 
himself doomed to destruction, he as much 
as Dante was the torch-bearer of the coming 
intellectual awakening. If Sordello was the 



DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 19 

forerunner of Dante, Frederick might well 
have been called the forerunner of the Medicis. 
The description given of him by Sedgwick 
in his *' Short History of Italy" brings his 
qualities before us vividly. *' Frederick him- 
self is the central figure of the period. In his 
lifetime he excited love and hate to extrava- 
gance and he still excites the enthusiasm of 
scholars." Dante Gabriel Rossetti places 
him among the poets in Dante's circle. 
Sedgwick goes on *'His is the most interest- 
ing Italian personality between St. Francis 
and Dante, for though he inherited the Hohen- 
stauffen vigor and energy, he got his chief 
traits from his Sicilian mother. Poet, law- 
giver, soldier, statesman, he was the wonder 
of the world. Impetuous, terrible, voluptu- 
ous, refined, he was a kind of Caesarian 
Byron. In most ways he outstripped con- 
temporary thought, in many ways he out- 
stripped contemporary sympathy. He was 
sceptical of the Athanasian creed, of Com- 
munal freedom, and of other things which 
his Italian countrymen believed devoutly 
while they were sceptical of the divine right 
of the Empire, of the blessing of a strong 
central government, and of other matters 
which he believed!" 

After several years of skirmishing, the 



20 BROWNING'S ITALY 

hatred of Frederick II and his poHcy among 
the Guelf cities of Lombardy, broke out in 
a protracted war. Among the Lombardy 
cities engaged in this warfare the most im- 
portant to us is the city of Verona. It falls 
into a group along with Vicenza, Padua, and 
Treviso — all inclined to Guelf interests. 
But there was a powerful body of small 
nobility who had fortified themselves in the 
hilly country in the neighborhood, and who 
had never been forced to quit their fortresses 
or to reside within the walls. These attached 
themselves to the side of the Emperor. Among 
those who became important in the civil 
feuds of that time, the Ecelins were con- 
spicuous, and, as we shall see later, Ezzel- 
lino da Romano or Ecelinlllwasof so ferocious 
a nature, that even his supporters turned 
against him. The Ecelin mentioned in this 
passage was the father of Ecelin III, Alberic 
and Palma, his wife being the Adelaide of 
the poem. Ecelin II, called the hillcat, was 
the representative of the Emperor and head 
of the Ghibelline party, but in 1223 he 
divided his lands between his two sons and 
himself became a monk. Browning repre- 
sents him at this time as dozing at Oliero, 

"with dry lips 
Telling upon his perished finger-tips 




o 

> 



< 

< 



DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 21 

How many ancestors are to depose 

Ere he be Satan's Viceroy when the doze 

Deposits him in hell." 

Taurello Salinguerra was Ecelin's chief 
lieutenant, and head of the GhibelUne party 
at Ferrara. Opposed to these GhibeUine 
leaders were Azzo VII, Marquis of Este and 
Ancona, and Count Richard of St. Boniface, 
Prince of Verona. History explains that the 
Marquises of Este were by far the most 
powerful nobles in eastern Lombardy, and 
about the end of the twelfth century began 
to be considered the heads of the church 
party in their neighborhood. They were 
frequently chosen for the chief magistrate or 
Podesta, by the cities of Romagna, and in 
1208 the people of Ferrara set the fatal ex- 
ample of sacrificing their freedom for tran- 
quillity by electing Azzo VII, Marquis of 
Este, as their lord or sovereign. 

Such was the general state of affairs — all 
that ordinary history usually goes into, when 
the event happened that Browning describes 
in this passage, and for the history of which 
we may glean a little in Muratori's "Annals," 
made accessible by W. M. Rossetti's trans- 
lations. Browning describes the life of Tau- 
rello leading up to this event in a passage in 
Book IV, where he tells how Taurello dwelt 



22 BROWNING'S ITALY 

at Ferrara, representing, of course, the side 
of the Emperor. The Estes did not inter- 
fere with him until Linguetta Marchesalla, 
left heiress of her house, was about to be 
married to Taurello. The Guelfs of 
Ravenna, afraid that if this marriage was 
consummated, Ferrara would fall into the 
hands of Taurello, attacked Ferrara and car- 
ried off the bride. Azzo VI was invited to 
the city, and while Taurello was sent off 
hunting, entered with the bride Linguetta. 
Taurello took refuge in the court of Sicily, 
ruled over at that time by Henry (VI). He 
married Retrude, of Henry's family, and 
suddenly returned to Ferrara, powerfully be- 
friended by Ecelin and the Emperor. He 
built a fine palace for his bride. But Azzo 
and Boniface, afraid of trouble, took the 
initiative, and attacked Taurello and Ecelin 
when conferring together at Vicenza, where 
Ecelin was Podesta. Here Retrude was 
mortally wounded and her child supposed 
to be lost; but the Guelfs were at last re- 
pulsed and Taurello became only second in 
control to Ecelin. 

At the time of the episode described in 
the passage quoted from the poem, Azzo VII 
had succeeded to the Azzo who stole the 
young Taurello's bride. He, according to 



DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 23 

Muratori, resided frequently in Ferrara, as 
being head of the Guelf faction and possess- 
ing here great plenty of property and vassals, 
— one of whom was Salinguerra, himself, 
head of the Ghibellines. It was ill brooked 
by his adherents that Salinguerra and his 
partisans should enjoy the best offices of the 
Republic. Consequently, in the month of 
August (1221), taking up arms they assailed 
the party of Salinguerra, and after a severe 
fight they forced him to abandon the city. 
Or, as Muratori adds, "This Guelf success 
led to a treaty which resulted in an agree- 
ment reinstating the Guelfs." The next year 
(according to Browning, next week) Salin- 
guerra returned and Azzo with his Guelfic 
party had to quit the city. To recover from 
this affront the Marquis got together an 
army collected at Rovigo and from his other 
states, and from Lombardy and the march 
of Verona, and went to pitch his camp under 
Ferrara. This was in 1222. In 1224 there 
was a renewed attack with an army, collected 
"from his own states and from his friends 
in Mantua, Padua, and Verona, bent upon 
vengeance." The siege was ended by the 
capture of Boniface as described in the 
poem, and of which Muratori gives this 
account: 



24 BROWNING'S ITALY 

"The astute Salinguerra exerted himself 
so much by affectionate letters and em- 
bassies that he induced Count Richard of 
San Bonifazio, with a certain number of 
horsemen, to enter Ferrara under the pretext 
of concluding a friendly pact. But, on enter- 
ing, he was at once made prisoner with all 
his company; and therefore the Marquis of 
Este, disappointed, retired from the siege." 

In the poem this bit of history is further 
enlarged upon by an envoy. 

"Taurello," quoth an envoy, "as in wane 
Dwelt at Ferrara. Like an osprey fain 
To fly but forced the earth his couch to make 
Far inland, till his friend the tempest wake. 
Waits he the Kaiser's coming; and as yet 
That fast friend sleeps, and he too sleeps: but let 
Only the billow freshen, and he snuffs 
The aroused hurricane ere it enroughs 
The sea it means to cross because of him. 
Sinketh the breeze ? His hope-sick eye grows dim; 
Creep closer on the creature! Every day 
Strengthens the Pontiff; Ecelin, they say. 
Dozes now at Oliero, with dry lips 
Telling upon his perished finger-tips 
How many ancestors are to depose 
Ere he be Satan's Viceroy when the doze 
Deposits him in hell. So, Guelfs rebuilt 
Their houses; not a drop of blood was spilt 
When Cino Bocchimpane chanced to meet 
Buccio Virtu — God's wafer, and the street 



DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 25 

Is narrow! Tutti Santi, think, a-swarm 

With Ghibellins, and yet he took no harm! 

This could not last. Off Sahnguerra went 

To Padua, Podesta, 'with pure intent,' 

Said he, *my presence, judged the single bar 

To permanent tranquillity, may jar 

No longer' — • so! his back is fairly turned! 

The pair of goodly palaces are burned. 

The gardens ravaged, and our Guelfs laugh, drunk 

A week with joy. The next, their laughter sunk 

In sobs of blood, for they found, some strange way, 

Old Salinguerra back again — I say, 

Old Salinguerra in the town once more 

Uprooting, overturning, flame before. 

Blood fetlock-high beneath him. Azzo fled; 

Who 'scaped the carnage followed; then the dead 

Were pushed aside from Salinguerra's throne. 

He ruled once more Ferrara, all alone. 

Till Azzo, stunned awhile, revived, would pounce 

Coupled with Boniface, like lynx and ounce 

On the gorged bird. The burghers ground their teeth 

To see troop after troop encamp beneath 

I' the standing corn thick o'er the scanty patch 

It took so many patient months to snatch 

Out of the marsh; while just within their walls 

Men fed on men. At length Taurello calls 

A parley; 'let the Count wind up the war! 

Richard, light-hearted as a plunging star. 

Agrees to enter for the kindest ends 

Ferrara, flanked with fifty chosen friends, 

No horse-boy more, for fear your timid sort 

Should fly Ferrara at the bare report. 

Quietly through the town they rode, jog-jog; 

'Ten, twenty, thirty, — curse the catalogue 



26 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Of burnt Guelf houses! Strange, Taurello shows 
Not the least sign of life ' — whereat arose 
A general growl : ' How ? With his victors by ? 
I and my Veronese ? My troops and I ? 
Receive us, was your word ? * So jogged they on. 
Nor laughed their host too openly: once gone 
Into the trap!" — 

The story of the especial relations of 
Frederick II to the Pope forms an interesting 
chapter in the great struggle of Pope and 
Emperor, and is thus touched upon by 
Browning : 

"When the new Hohenstauffen dropped the mask, 
Flung John of Brienne's favor from his casque. 
Forswore crusading, had no mind to leave 
Saint Peter's proxy leisure to retrieve 
Losses to Otho and to Barbaross, 
Or make the Alps less easy to recross. 
And, thus confirming Pope Honorius' fear. 
Was excommunicate that very year. 
'The triple-bearded Teuton come to hfe!' 
Groaned the Great League; and, arming for the strife. 
Wide Lombardy, on tiptoe to begin, 
Took up, as it were Guelf or GhibeUin, 
Its cry: what cry? 

'The Emperor to come!*" 

It has been hinted that the popes, though 
honestly desirous of reconquering Jerusalem, 
yet also had a sneaking feeling that the best 
way to keep Frederick out of mischief in 



DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 27 

Italy would be to keep him occupied in the 
holy land. Frederick made all sorts of 
promises, that he would go on a crusade, 
and that he would keep the crowns of Ger- 
many and the Two Sicilies separate. He 
did not go on a crusade, and he secured the 
two crowns for himself and his heir. Upon 
his renewed promise that he would go on a 
crusade. Pope Honorius crowned him 
Emperor in 1220. Three years passed and 
Frederick with his crowns safely on his head 
still neglected his trip to Jerusalem. When 
Gregory IX succeeded he was exceedingly 
angry at the Emperor's procrastination, and 
Frederick at last actually set forth, under 
difficult conditions, too, for a pestilence had 
killed many of the soldiers, but in a few days 
it was learned that he had put about and 
disembarked in Italy. 

Gregory's wrath now broke forth in an 
encyclical letter, which he sent off to various 
bishops in Frederick's dominions. It dwelt 
at length upon the Papal side of the matter 
and ended up with *'Yet, lest like dumb dogs 
who cannot bark. We should seem to defer to 
man against God and take no vengeance 
upon him, the Emperor Frederick who has 
wrought such ruin on God's people. We, 
though unwilling, do publicly pronounce him 



28 BROWNING'S ITALY 

excommunicated, and command that he be 
by all completely shunned, and that you and 
other prelates who shall hear of this, publicly 
publish his excommunications. And, if his 
contumacy shall demand, more grave pro- 
ceeding shall be taken." From Sicily to Scot- 
land this ban was published. Frederick, 
nothing daunted, wrote to the kings of Europe 
his side of the matter, and expressing the 
opinion that the Roman Church was so con- 
sumed with avarice and greed that, not satis- 
fied with her own Church property, she was 
not ashamed to disinherit emperors, kings, 
and princes, and make them tributary. 

Peace was, however, outwardly maintained, 
the Emperor went on a crusade and suc- 
ceeded so well that he had himself crowned 
King of Jerusalem. 

The Ecclesiastics were becoming terribly 
worried over his desire to put the temporal 
power above the spiritual power, especially 
when he was known to hob-nob so intimately 
with the Saracens. 

Finally, the Lombard cities formed a league, 
and revolted. Frederick marched against 
them and won a victory in 1237. x\ll the 
Guelfs in Italy now arose against him. The 
Pope did his share with his thunders of ex- 
communication, and at a Council held at 



DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 29 

Lyons deprived Frederick of his imperial 
crown. Then an anti-emperor was set up. 
He was defeated later at Padua, and his son 
Enzio was captured and spent twenty-three 
years in prison, there dying. Finally, in 
1250, Frederick himself died, to the joy of 
Papal Italy. 

In Count Richard's Palace at Verona, 
Sordello and Palma are together the night 
of Richard's capture. Another vivid picture 
gives this imaginary situation, for which, as 
the Poet himself says, the historical pictures 
are merely the setting. 

"The same night wears. Verona's rule of yore 
Was vested in a certain Twenty-four; 
And while within his palace these debate 
Concerning Richard and Ferrara's fate. 
Glide we by clapping doors, with sudden glare 
Of cressets vented on the dark, nor care 
For aught that's seen or heard until we shut 
The smother in, the lights, all noises but 
The carroch's booming: safe at last! Why strange 
Such a recess should lurk behind a range 
Of banquet-rooms ? Your finger — thus — you push 
A spring, and the wall opens, would you rush 
Upon the banqueters, select your prey. 
Waiting (the slaughter-weapons in the way 
Strewing this very bench) with sharpened ear 
A preconcerted signal to appear; 
Or if you simply crouch with beating heart. 
Bearing in some voluptuous pageant part 



30 BROWNING'S ITALY 

To startle them. Nor mutes nor masquers now; 
Nor any . . . does that one man sleep whose brow 
The dingy lamp-flame sinks and rises o'er ? 
What woman stood beside him ? not the more 
Is he unfastened from the earnest eyes 
Because that arras fell between! Her wise 
And lulling words are yet about the room. 
Her presence wholly poured upon the gloom 
Down even to her vesture's creeping stir. 
And so reclines he, saturate with her. 
Until an outcry from the square beneath 
Pierces the charm: he springs up, glad to breathe, 
Above the cunning element, and shakes 
The stupor off as (look you) morning breaks 
On the gay dress, and, near concealed by it. 
The lean frame like a haK-burnt taper, lit 
Erst at some marriage-feast, then laid away 
Till the Armenian bridegroom's dying day, 
In his wool wedding-robe." 

Although this scene is near the end of 
Sordello's Kfe, it is presented in the first 
book of the poem, after which Browning 
takes us back to the childhood of Sordello, 
telling of the events of his life and of the 
progress of his soul until the scene at first 
described is again reached. We take from 
the Camberwell edition of Robert Brow^n- 
ing the following summary of the steps in his 
development. The first step is when he 
awakes from the dream-life, described in the 
first book, spent in the old castle and woods 



DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 31 

of Goito, during which he exerted his powers 
of imagination within himself for his private 
pleasure. He lives here as a child, not know- 
ing who he is, in the castle belonging to the 
Ecelins, where Adelaide, wife of Ecelin II is 
living, and also Palma, the daughter of 
Ecelin II and Agnes Este. The second step 
follows when suddenly brought into contact 
with the outside world at Palma's Court of 
Love, there he wins the crown from the 
troubadour, Eglamore, is made Palma's 
minstrel; and thereafter exerting his powers 
over his fellows as a minstrel in Mantua, he 
finally finds that his skill is insufficient to 
keep himself supreme while he is swaying 
others for his own pleasure. He cannot make 
them recognize in him the power behind his 
song. The attempt to assert himself through 
his poetry finally brings himself and his art 
into utter conflict. He loves Palma, but she 
is the betrothed of Count Richard, as Taurello 
learns much to his surprise from Ecelin. 
Adelaide, having fallen sick, Old Ecelin lost 
heart, and fell deeper into the clutches of the 
Church. He writes Salinguerra of the be- 
trothal of his sons Ecelin III and Alberic, to 
Beatrix, Este's sister, and to Richard's Giglia, 
and of Palma as Richard's prospective bride; 
these alliances joining the Guelf and Ghibel- 



32 BROWNING'S ITALY 

line parties. This, with the news of Ade- 
laide's death reached Taurello as he was about 
to sail with the Emperor to the Crusades. 
At once he set out, but reached Ecelin's side 
only to find out that the marriages of the sons 
had been consummated, that Ecelin was him- 
self absorbed in making his peace before 
dying, and that Palma only was left him at 
Goito. Taurello at once goes to Mantua, 
where he had lived for a time with Retrude, 
and where his family had its origin, and the 
Mantuans prepared to greet him with cere- 
mony. Sordello is to take the opportunity to 
win laurels for himself as Minstrel, but his 
power deserts him, and excuses are made to 
Taurello for his non-appearance. He also 
finds out at this time that he is the son of a 
poor archer, Elcorte, who had perished in 
the attack upon Ecelin, in which he had 
saved Adelaide and the young Ecelin, leav- 
ing his son Sordello to be gratefully reared 
by his chief's family in Adelaide's private 
retreat, Goito. This story of Sordello's birth 
was found by Mrs. Caroline H. Dall, among 
old chronicles in the Canadian Parliament 
library, which relate that Sordello was *'born 
in the Mantuan territory, of a poor knight 
named Elcorte." He began to write songs 
early and was attached to the Court of St. 



DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 33 

Boniface, and the lover of his wife eloping 
with her! 

The third step in his development is de- 
scribed in Book III. He seeks loneliness with 
nature at Goito once more, and determines 
to experience life itself now, instead of living 
merely for art's sake. Then he is summoned 
by Palma to Verona. The next day at 
evening he reaches Verona — the moment 
and scene sketched at the beginning of the 
poem have arrived. He resolves, under her 
inspiration to make his art tributary to the 
life of others instead of making them, through 
his art, tributary to himself. 

The fourth step described in Book IV 
follows as a result of his new contact, at Fer- 
rara, with two unreconciled social influences: 
the career of power exemplified in Salin- 
guerra, and the suffering life of the people. 
Having determined to devote himself to up- 
lifting the masses, it devolves upon him to 
find an efficient way to serve them. Con- 
cluding that the Guelf and Ghibelline policy 
are equally hard upon them, the only solution 
of the question he finds is the suggestion 
Rome gives of a universal and continuing city 
sheltering all mankind. 

Pursuing this clue toward a way of serving 
the people, in Book V he seeks to act upon it 



34 BROWNING'S ITALY 

by reconciling the two opposite influences he 
has just recognized, attempting to use his 
poetic gift to persuade Sahnguerra to cham- 
pion the Guelf cause, since that serves Rome's. 
In doing this, SaHnguerra's sudden con- 
ferring of the Emperor's badge upon Sor- 
dello, and Palma's revelation that he is 
Salinguerra's son, brings upon himself the 
burden of the decision he is urging upon the 
old soldier. Sordello's struggle over the deci- 
sion described in Book VI results, finally, in a 
conquest over his own personal self-seeking, 
and he dies stamping the imperial badge 
beneath his foot, but in a failure to seize the 
one chance of centuries, to pacify the war of 
Barons against People, to reconcile in his 
own person the conflicting influences of in- 
dividual and social welfare. 

So, it will be seen, Browning brings together 
the artistic and political issues of the time. 
Sordello is brought into close personal con- 
tact with the Ghibelline cause by being made 
the lost son of Taurello and Retrude. He 
represents Adelaide, alone, as knowing of 
this, and keeping Sordello's birth secret be- 
cause she was afraid of his superiority to her 
own son. Finding himself by birth a Ghib- 
elline, by sympathy a Guelf, and with the 
opportunity to win preferment in the Em- 



DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 35 

peror's cause, he triumphs spiritually over 
the temptation. 

In the sketch of the real Sordello, it de- 
veloped that he joined the forces of Charles 
of Anjou and helped him secure the throne 
of the Two Sicilies. What, at first sight, 
appears so unpatriotic has a different color 
if we look a little more closely into the history 
of the time, and really brings him more into 
touch with Sordello as Browning has repre- 
sented him. 

Of the two sons of Ecelin II, between 
whom he had divided his possessions, Ezze- 
lino was destined to play the most important 
part in the struggles between Pope and 
Emperor. After Richard had been re-in- 
stated in his city of Verona, as Muratori says, 
"only a few months passed ere many nobles 
and leading men of his faction in that city, 
corrupted by Salinguerra's money, united 
with the Montecchi, Ghibellines, and ex- 
pelled him. Then it was that Ezzelino da 
Romana, who in closest league with Salin- 
guerra bore a part in these negotiations, 
hurried to Verona to reenforce the Montecchi, 
and began to exercise some little authority 
in the city." Soon this man was to become 
what Burckhard describes as a. usurper of 
the most peculiar kind. *'He stands as the 



36 BROWNING'S ITALY 

representative of no system of government 
or administration, for all his activity was 
wasted in struggles for supremacy in the 
eastern part of upper Italy; but as a political 
type he was a figure of no less importance for 
the future than his imperial protector 
Frederick. The conquests and usurpations 
which had hitherto taken place in the Middle 
Ages rested on real or pretended inheritance 
and other such claims, or else were effected 
against unbelievers and excommunicated per- 
sons. Here for the first time the attempt 
was openly made to found a throne by whole- 
sale murder and endless barbarities, by the 
adoption, in short, of any means with a 
view to nothing but the end pursued. 
None of his successors, not even Caesar 
Borgia, rivaled the colossal guilt of Ezzelino; 
but the example once set was not for- 
gotten, and his fall led to no return of 
justice among the nations, and served as no 
warning to future transgressors. Frederick 
and Ezzelino were, and remain for Italy, 
the great political phenomena of the thir- 
teenth century." 

Against this outrageous tyrant, Pope 
Alexander IV preached a crusade. It was 
so much the custom at that time for rulers to 
indulge in any tyrannies they wished to per- 



DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 37 

petrate, that advances against him could only 
be made on poHtical grounds. 

Alexander stirred up the Guelfic cities to 
attack him. He was a good soldier and had 
Ghibelline alliances, and he defended him- 
self bravely. But while he was ravaging the 
territory of a Guelfic neighbor, the enemy 
took Padua. Great was the horror when 
upon opening the dungeon where his maimed 
and starving prisoners were kept, they came 
upon a crowd of helpless children, which had 
been blinded by this cruel fiend. Even his 
Ghibelline allies deserted him, and joining 
the Guelfs turned their arms against him, 
and finally, brought to bay, he killed himself. 

Such a fiend as this did not help the 
cause of the Empire, and after the death of 
Frederick, already recorded, the Hohen- 
stauffens went quickly to their ruin. Man- 
fred, an illegitimate son of Frederick's, first 
acting as regent for Conradin, the lawful heir, 
then tried to establish himself in the Two 
Sicilies as King. The Popes, however, deter- 
mined to destroy this last of the ** Vipers' 
brood" as they called the Hohenstauffens, 
so they invited the French prince, Charles of 
Anjou, to come and depose Manfred. A 
crusade against Manfred was proclaimed, 
and with an army furnished by the Pope, 



38 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Charles defeated and killed him. Charles 
was enthusiastically welcomed by Guelfic 
Italy, and was given the crown of the Two 
Sicilies. Conradin, a lad only sixteen years old 
came down in the hope of regaining his 
kingdom, but he, too, was defeated, taken 
prisoner, and after a mock trial for treason 
put to death. Thus the Popes prevented the 
union of the Two Sicilies with the Empire. 

From this it will be seen that the really 
patriotic side, the side most allied to the 
cause of the people was the side against the 
Emperor; and just as Browning's Sordello 
saw that the Guelfs furnished a better im- 
plement with which to work for the people 
than the Emperor's faction, so may the real 
Sordello have regarded Charles of Anjou as 
a weapon against tyranny, as he was certainly 
regarded by the Guelfs, and this no doubt is 
the reason why Dante lauded him as a patriot. 

Historical glimpses of the sketches just 
given, enlivened by the poet's imagination, 
may be gained from the following passages: 

"The tale amounts 
To this: when at Vicenza both her counts 
Banished the Vivaresi kith and kin, 
Those Maltraversi hung on Ecelin, 
Reviled him as he followed; he for spite 
Must fire their quarter, though that self-same night 



DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 39 

Among the flames young Ecelin was born 

Of Adelaide, there too, and barely torn 

From the roused populace hard on the rear. 

By a poor archer when his chieftain's fear 

Grew high; into the thick Elcorte leapt. 

Saved her, and died; no creature left except 

His child to thank. And when the full escape 

Was known — how men impaled from chine to nape 

Unlucky Prata, all to pieces spurned 

Bishop Pistore's concubines, and burned 

Taurello's entire household, flesh and fell. 

Missing the sweeter prey — such courage well 

Might claim reward. The orphan, ever since, 

Sordello, had been nurtured by his prince 

Within a blind retreat. 

"Meanwhile the world rejoiced ('tis time explain) 

Because a sudden sickness set it free 

From Adelaide. Missing the mother-bee, 

Her mountain-hive Romano swarmed; at once 

A rustle-forth of daughters and of sons 

Blackened the valley. 'I am sick too, old. 

Half -crazed I think; what good's the Kaiser's gold 

To such an one ? God help me ! for I catch 

My children's greedy sparkling eyes at watch — 

"He bears that double breastplate on," they say, 

"So many minutes less than yesterday!" 

Beside, Monk Hilary is on his knees 

Now, sworn to kneel and pray till God shall please 

Exact a punishment for many things 

You know, and some you never knew; which brings 

To memory, Azzo's sister Beatrix 

And Richard's Giglia are my Alberic's 

And Ecelin's betrothed; the Count himself 



40 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Must get my Palma: Ghibellin and Guelf 
Mean to embrace each other.' So began 
Romano's missive to his fighting man 
Taurello — on the Tuscan's death, away 
With Friedrich sworn to sail from Naples' bay 
Next month for Syria. Never thunder-clap 
Out of Vesuvius' throat, like this mishap 
Startled him. 'That accursed Vicenza! I 
Absent, and she selects this time to die! 
Ho, fellows, for Vicenza!' Hah a score 
Of horses ridden dead, he stood before 
Romano in his reeking spurs: too late — 
'Boniface urged me, Este could not wait,' 
The chieftain stammered; 'let me die in peace — 
Forget me! Was it I who craved increase 
Of rule ? Do you and Friedrich plot your worst 
Against the Father: as you found me first 
So leave me now. Forgive me! Palma, sure. 
Is at Goito still. Retain that lure — 
Only be pacified ! ' 

The country rung 
With such a piece of news: on every tongue. 
How Ecelin's great servant, congeed off. 
Had done a long day's service, so, might doff 
The green and yellow, and recover breath 
At Mantua, whither, — since Retrude's death, 
(The girlish slip of a Sicilian bride 
From Otho's house, he carried to reside 
At Mantua till the Ferrarese should pile 
A structure worthy her imperial style. 
The gardens raise, the statues there enshrine. 
She never lived to see) — although his line 
Was ancient in her archives and she took 
A pride in him, that city, nor forsook 



DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 41 

Her child when he forsook himself and spent 

A prowess on Romano surely meant 

For his own growth — whither he ne'er resorts 

If wholly satisfied (to trust reports) 

With Ecelin. So, forward in a trice 

Were shows to greet him. 'Take a friend's advice,* 

Quoth Naddo, to Sordello 'nor be rash 

Because your rivals (nothing can abash 

Some folks) demur that we pronounced you best 

To sound the great man's welcome; 'tis a test, 

Remember!' 

"One more day. 
One eve — appears Verona! Many a group, 
(You mind) instructed of the osprey's swoop 
On lynx and ounce, was gathering — Christendom 
Sure to receive, whate'er the end was, from 
The evening's purpose cheer or detriment, 
Since Friedrich only waited some event 
Like this, of Ghibellins establishing 
Themselves within Ferrara, ere, as King 
Of Lombardy, he'd glad descend there, wage 
Old warfare with the Pontiff, disengage 
His barons from the burghers, and restore 
The rule of Charlemagne, broken of yore 
By Hildebrand. 

I' the palace, each by each, 
Sordello sat and Palma; little speech 
At first in that dim closet, face with face 
(Despite the tumult in the market-place) 
Exchanging quick low laughters: now would rush 
Word upon word to meet a sudden flush, 
A look left off, a shifting lips' surmise — ■ 
But for the most part their two histories 



42 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Ran best through the locked fingers and linked arms. 

And so the night flew on with its alarms 

Till in burst one of Palma's retinue; 

*Now, Lady!' gasped he. Then arose the two 

And leaned into Verona's air, dead-still. 

A balcony lay black beneath until 

Out, 'mid a gush of torchfire, gray -haired men 

Came on it and harangued the people: then 

Sea-like that people surging to and fro 

Shouted, 'Hale forth the carroch — trumpets, ho, 

A flourish! Run it in the ancient grooves! 

Back from the bell ! Hammer — that whom behooves 

May hear the League is up ! Peal — learn who list, 

Verona means not first of towns break tryst 

To-morrow with the League!' 

Enough. Now turn — 
Over the eastern cypresses: discern! 
Is any beacon set a-glimmer ? 

Rang 
The air with shouts that overpowered the clang 
Of the incessant carroch, even: 'Haste — 
The candle 's at the gateway! ere it waste, 
Each soldier stand beside it, armed to march 
With Tiso Sampier through the eastern arch!* 
Ferrara's succored, Palma!" 

Here is a fine picture of Ferrara during the 
struggle in which Richard had been seized, 
and following it a little later, a description 
of Taurello's palace, the one he had built for 
Retrude, and in which Richard is imprisoned. 
The description shows Browning in one of 
his most poetic moods. 




Gate of Bosari, Verona. (1600 years old.) 



DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 43 

"Meantime Ferrara lay in rueful case; 

The lady-city, for whose sole embrace 

Her pair of suitors struggled, felt their arms 

A brawny mischief to the fragile charms 

They tugged for — one discovering that to twist 

Her tresses twice or thrice about his wrist 

Secured a point of vantage — one, how best 

He 'd parry that by planting in her breast 

His elbow spike — each party too intent 

For noticing, howe'er the battle went. 

The conqueror would but have a corpse to kiss. 

'May Boniface be duly damned for this!' 

— Howled some old Ghibelhn, as up he turned, 
From the wet heap of rubbish where they burned 
His house, a little skull with dazzling teeth: 

'A boon, sweet Christ — let Sahnguerra seethe 

In hell forever, Christ, and let myself 

Be there to laugh at him!' — moaned some young Guelf 

Stumbling upon a shrivelled hand nailed fast 

To the charred lintel of the doorway, last 

His father stood within to bid him speed. 

The thoroughfares were overrun with weed 

— Docks, quitchgrass, loathly mallows no man plants. 
The stranger, none of its inhabitants 

Crept out of doors to taste fresh air again, 
And ask the purpose of a splendid train 
Admitted on a morning; every town 
Of the East League was come by envoy down 
To treat for Richard's ransom: here you saw 
The Vicentine, here snowy oxen draw 
The Paduan carroch, its vermilion cross 
On its white field. A-tiptoe o'er the fosse 
Looked Legate Montelungo wistfully 
After the flock of steeples he might spy 



44 BROWNING'S ITALY 

In Este's time, gone (doubts he) long ago 

To mend the ramparts: sure the laggards know 

The Pope's as good as here! They paced the streets 

More soberly. At last, 'Taurello greets 

The League,' announced a pursuivant, — 'will match 

Its courtesy, and labors to dispatch 

At earliest Tito, Friedrich's Pretor, sent 

On pressing matters from his post at Trent, 

With Mainard Count of Tyrol, — simply waits 

Their going to receive the delegates.'" 

*' Our dropping Autumn morning clears apace, 

And poor Ferrara puts a softened face 

On her misfortunes. Let us scale this tall 

Huge foursquare line of red brick garden-wall 

Bastioned within by trees of every sort 

On three sides, slender, spreading, long and short; 

Each grew as it contrived, the poplar ramped, 

The fig-tree reared itself, — but stark and cramped, 

Made fools of, hke tamed hons: whence, on the edge. 

Running 'twixt trunk and trunk to smooth one ledge 

Of shade, were shrubs inserted, warp and woof. 

Which smothered up that variance. Scale the roof 

Of sohd tops, and o'er the slope you slide 

Down to a grassy space level and wide, 

Here and there dotted with a tree, but trees 

Of rarer leaf, each foreigner at ease. 

Set by itself: and in the centre spreads, 

Borne upon three uneasy leopards' heads, 

A laver, broad and shallow, one bright spirt 

Of water bubbles in. The walls begirt 

With trees leave off on either hand; pursue 

Your path along a wondrous avenue 

Those walls abut on, heaped of gleamy stone. 



DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 45 

With aloes leering everywhere, gray-grown 

From many a Moorish summer: how they wind 

Out of the fissures! likelier to bind 

The building than those rusted cramps w'hich drop 

Already in the eating sunshine. Stop, 

You fleeting shapes above there! Ah, the pride 

Or else despair of the whole country-side! 

A range of statues, swarming o'er with wasps, 

God, goddess, woman, man, the Greek rough-rasps 

In crumbling Naples marble — meant to look 

Like those Messina marbles Constance took 

Delight in, or Taurello's self conveyed 

To Mantua for his mistress, Adelaide, 

A certain font with caryatides 

Since cloistered at Goito; only, these 

Are up and doing, not abashed, a troop 

Able to right themselves — who see you, stoop 

Their arms o' the instant after you! Unplucked 

By this or that, you pass; for they conduct 

To terrace raised on terrace, and, between. 

Creatures of brighter mould and braver mien 

Than any yet, the choicest of the Isle 

No doubt. Here, left a sullen breathing-while. 

Up-gathered on himself the Fighter stood 

For his last fight, and, wiping treacherous blood 

Out of the eyelids just held ope beneath 

Those shading fingers in their iron sheath. 

Steadied his strengths amid the buzz and stir 

Of the dusk hideous amphitheatre 

At the announcement of his over-match 

To wind the day's diversion up, dispatch 

The pertinacious Gaul: while, limbs one heap. 

The Slave, no breath in her round mouth, watched leap 

Dart after dart forth, as her hero's car 



46 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Clove dizzily the solid of the war 
— Let coil about his knees for pride in him. 
We reach the farthest terrace, and the grim 
San Pietro Palace stops us. 

Such the state 
Of Salinguerra's plan to emulate 
Sicilian marvels, that his girlish wife 
Retrude still might lead her ancient life 
In her new home: whereat enlarged so much 
Neighbors upon the novel princely touch 
He took, — who here imprisons Boniface. 
Here must the Envoys come to sue for grace; 
And here, emerging from the labyrinth 
Below, Sordello paused beside the plinth 
Of the door-pillar." 

Wholly imaginative is the scene where 
Sordello tries to persuade Taurello to give up 
the Ghibelline side for the Guelf side. De- 
spite the fact that his arguments fail to con- 
vince, Taurello suddenly throws the imperial 
badge on Bordello's neck, with the idea that 
he, once being Palma's husband, will bear 
her burdens as head of the Romano house. 

It will be remembered that Ecelin II re- 
tired to a monastery, and married his two 
sons to Guelf wives and proposed to marry 
Palma to a Guelf husband. 

Ecelin has also given his best land to the 
Pope as a sop to allow him to divide the rest 
of it between his sons, so Taurello's work of 
thirty years is lost, and he feels a younger 



DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 47 

person is needed to hold up the GhibelHne 
cause. Palma, not yet married to Richard, is 
his only hope of a head to the Romano house. 
The climax of the scene is Palma's revelation 
that Sordello is really Taurello's son. 

"My poor Sordello! what may we extort 
By this, I wonder ? Palma's lighted eyes 
Turned to Taurello who, long past surprise, 
Began, 'You love him — what you'd say at large 
Let me say briefly. First, your father's charge 
, To me, his friend, peruse: I guessed indeed 
You were no stranger to the course decreed. 
He bids me leave his children to the saints: 
As for a certain project, he acquaints 
The Pope with that, and offers him the best 
Of your possessions to permit the rest 
Go peaceably — to Ecelin, a stripe 
Of soil the cursed Vicentines will gripe, 
— To Alberic, a patch the Trevisan 
Clutches already; extricate, who can, 
Treville, Villarazzi, Puissolo, 
Loria and Cartiglione! — all must go, 
And with them go my hopes. 'Tis lost, then! Lost 
This eve, our crisis, and some pains it cost 
Procuring; thirty years — as good I'd spent 
Like our admonisher! But each his bent 
Pursues: no question, one might live absurd 
One's self this while, by deed as he by word 
Persisting to obtrude an influence where 
'Tis made account of, much as . . . nay, you fare 
With twice the fortune, youngster! — I submit, 
Happy to parallel my waste of wit 



48 BROWNING'S ITALY 

With the renowned Sordello's: you decide 

A course for me. Romano may abide 

Romano, — Bacchus! After all, what dearth 

Of Ecelins and Alberics on earth ? 

Say there's a prize in prospect, must disgrace 

Betide competitors, unless they style 

Themselves Romano ? Were it worth my while 

To try my own luck! But an obscure place 

Suits me — there wants a youth to bustle, stalk 

And attitudinize — some fight, more talk, 

Most flaunting badges — how, I might make clear 

Since Friedrich's very purposes lie here 

— Here, pity they are like to lie! For me. 

With station fixed unceremoniously 

Long since, small use contesting; I am but 

The liegeman — you are born the lieges — shut 

That gentle mouth now! or resume your kin 

In your sweet self; were Palma Ecelin 

For me to work with! Could that neck endure 

This bauble for a cumbrous garniture, 

She should ... or might one bear it for her ? Stay — 

I have not been so flattered many a day 

As by your pale friend — Bacchus ! The least help 

Would lick the hind's fawn to a lion's whelp: 

His neck is broad enough — a ready tongue 

Beside — too writhled — but, the main thing, young — 

I could . . . why, look ye ! ' 

And the badge was thrown 
Across Sordello's neck: 'This badge alone 
Makes you Romano's Head — becomes superb 
On your bare neck, which would, on mine, disturb 
The pauldron,' said Taurello. A mad act, 
Nor even dreamed about before — in fact, 
Not when his sportive arm rose for the nonce — 



DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 49 

But he had dallied overmuch, this once 

With power: the thing was done, and he, aware 

The thing was done, proceeded to declare — 

(So like a nature made to serve, excel 

In serving, only feel by service well!) 

— That he would make Sordello that and more. 

*As good a scheme as any. What's to pore 

At in my face ? ' he asked — ' ponder instead 

This piece of news; you are Romano's Head! 

One cannot slacken pace so near the goal, 

Suffer my Azzo to escape heart-whole 

This time! For you there's Palma to espouse — 

For me, one crowning trouble ere I house 

Like my compeer.' 

On which ensued a strange 
And solemn visitation; there came change 
O'er every one of them; each looked on each: 
Up in the midst a truth grew, without speech. 
And when the giddiness sank and the haze 
Subsided, they were sitting, no amaze, 
Sordello with the baldric on, his sire 
Silent, though his proportions seemed aspire 
Momently; and, interpreting the thrill, — 
Right at its ebb, — Palma was found there still 
Relating somewhat Adelaide confessed 
A year ago, while dying on her breast, — 
Of a contrivance that Vicenza night 
When Ecelin had birth. 'Their convoy's flight, 
Cut off a moment, coiled inside the flame 
That wallowed hke a dragon at his game 
The toppling city through — San Biaglo rocks! 
And wounded lies in her delicious locks 
Retrude, the frail mother, on her face. 
None of her wasted, just in one embrace 



50 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Covering her child: when, as they lifted her, 

Cleaving the tumult, mighty, mightier 

And mightiest Taurello's cry outbroke. 

Leapt like a tongue of fire that cleaves the smoke, 

Midmost to cheer his Mantuans onward — drown 

His colleague Ecelin's clamor, up and down 

The disarray: failed Adelaide see then 

Who was the natural chief, the man of men ? 

Outstripping time, her infant there burst swathe. 

Stood up with eyes haggard beyond the scathe 

From wandering after his heritage 

Lost once and lost for aye — and why that rage. 

That deprecating glance ? A new shape leant 

On a familiar shape — gloatingly bent 

O'er his discomfiture; 'mid wreaths it wore, 

Still one outflamed the rest — her child's before 

'Twas Salinguerra's for his child: scorn, hate, 

Rage now might startle her when all too late! 

Then was the moment! — rival's foot had spumed 

Never that House to earth else! Sense returned — 

The act conceived, adventured and complete. 

They bore away to an obscure retreat 

Mother and child — Retrude's self not slain' 

(Nor even here Taurello moved) 'though pain 

Was fled: and what assured them most 'twas fled. 

All pain, was, if they raised the pale hushed head 

'Twould turn this way and that, waver awhile. 

And only settle into its old smile — 

(Graceful as the disquieted water-flag 

Steadying itself, remarked they, in the quag 

On either side their path) — when suffered look 

Down on her child. They marched: no sign once shook 

The company's close litter of crossed spears 

Till, as they reached Goito, a few tears 



DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 51 

Slipped in the sunset from her long black lash. 

And she was gone. So far the action rash; 

No crime. They laid Retrude in the font, 

Taurello's very gift, her child was wont 

To sit beneath — constant as eve he came 

To sit by its attendant girls the same 

As one of them. For Palma, she would blend 

With this magnific spirit to the end, 

That ruled her first; but scarcely had she dared 

To disobey the Adelaide who scared 

Her into vowing never to disclose 

A secret to her husband, which so froze 

His blood at half-recital, she contrived 

To hide from him Taurello's infant lived. 

Lest, by revealing that, himself should mar 

Romano's fortunes. And, a crime so far, 

Palma received that action: she w^as told 

Of Salinguerra's nature, of his cold 

Calm acquiescence in his lot! But free 

To impart the secret to Romano, she 

Engaged to repossess Sordello of 

His heritage, and hers, and that way doff 

The mask, but after years, long years: while now. 

Was not Romano's sign-mark on that brow ? ' 

Across Taurello's heart his arms were locked: 

And when he did speak 'twas as if he mocked 

The minstrel, 'who had not to move,' he said, 

'Nor stir — should fate defraud him of a shred 

Of his son's infancy? much less his youth!' 

(Laughingly all this) — 'which to aid, in truth. 

Himself, reserved on purpose, had not grown 

Old, not too old — 'twas best they kept alone 

Till now, and never idly met till now;' 

— Then, in the same breath, told Sordello how 



52 BROWNING'S ITALY 

All intimations of this eve's event 

Were lies, for Friedrich must advance to Trent, 

Thence to Verona, then to Rome, there stop. 

Tumble the Church down, institute a-top 

The Alps a Prefecture of Lombardy: 

— 'That's now! — no prophesying what may be 

Anon, with a new monarch of the clime. 

Native of Gesi, passing his youth's prime 

At Naples. Tito bids my choice decide 

On whom' . . . 

'Embrace him, madman!' Palma cried. 
Who through the laugh saw sweat-drops burst apace. 
And his hps blanching: he did not embrace 
Sordello, but he laid Sordello's hand 
On his own eyes, mouth, forehead." 

Sordello's struggle over the decision thus 
forced upon him causes his sudden death, 
which is wonderfully touched upon in these 
lines : 

"What has Sordello found? 
Or can his spirit go the mighty round. 
End where poor Eglamor begun ? So, says 
Old fable, the two eagles went two ways 
About the world: where, in the midst, they met. 
Though on a shifting waste of sand, men set 
Jove's temple. Quick, what has Sordello found .'' 
For they approach — approach — that foot's rebound 
Palma .-^ No, Salinguerra though in mail; 
They mount, have reached the threshold, dash the veil 
Aside — and you divine who sat there dead. 
Under his foot the badge: still, Palma said, 
A triumph hngering in the wide eyes, 



DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 53 

Wider than some spent swimmer's if he spies 

Help from above in his extreme despair, 

And, head far back on shoulder thrust, turns there 

With short quick passionate cry: as Palma pressed 

In one great kiss, her lips upon his breast, 

It beat. 

By this, the hermit-bee has stopped 
His day's toil at Goito: the new-cropped 
Dead vine-leaf answers, now 'tis eve, he bit. 
Twirled so, and filed all day: the mansion's fit, 
God counselled for. As easy guess the word 
That passed betwixt them, and become the third 
To the soft small unfrighted bee, as tax 
Him with one fault — so, no remembrance racks 
Of the stone maidens and the font of stone 
He, creeping through the crevice, leaves alone. 
Alas, my friend, alas Sordello, whom 
Anon they laid within that old font-tomb, 
And, yet again, alas!" 

The poet in expressing his own opinion of 
Sordello refers to the fame which was accorded 
him by the Chroniclers of Mantua, among 
them Aliprandi, who is responsible for the 
legend that he belonged to the Visconti 
family. To Browning's mind, how^ever, the 
best that can be said of him is that he wrote 
poetry in the Tuscan dialect, which he has 
heard a little barefoot child in Asolo sing. 

"Is there no more to say ? He of the rhymes — 
Many a tale, of this retreat betimes. 
Was born : Sordello die at once for men ? 



54 BROWNING'S ITALY 

The Chronclers of Mantua tired their pen 

Telling how Sordello Prince Visconti saved 

Mantua, and elsewhere notably behaved — 

Who thus, by fortune ordering events. 

Passed with posterity, to all intents. 

For just the god he never could become. 

As Knight, Bard, Gallant, men were never dumb 

In praise of him: while what he should have been. 

Could be, and was not — the one step too mean 

For him to take, — we suffer at this day 

Because of: Ecelin had pushed away 

Its chance ere Dante could arrive and take 

That step Sordello spurned, for the world's sake: 

He did much — but Sordello 's chance was gone. 

Thus, had Sordello dared that step alone, 

Apollo had been compassed — 'twas a fit 

He wished should go to him, not he to it 

— As one content to merely be supposed 

Singing or fighting elsewhere, while he dozed 

Really at home — one who was chiefly glad 

To have achieved the few real deeds he had. 

Because that way assured they were not worth 

Doing, so spared from doing them henceforth — 

A tree that covets fruitage and yet tastes 

Never itself, itself. Had he embraced 

Their cause then, men had plucked Hesperian fruit 

And, praising that, just thrown him in to boot 

All he was anxious to appear, but scarce 

Solicitous to be. A sorry farce 

Such life is, after all! Cannot I say 

He hved for some one better thing ? this way. — 

Lo, on a heathy brown and nameless hill 

By sparkling Asolo, in mist and chill. 

Morning just up, higher and higher runs 



DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 55 

A child barefoot and rosy. See! the sun's 

On the square castle's inner-court's low wall 

Like the chine of some extinct animal 

Half turned to earth and flowers; and through the haze 

(Save where some slender patches of gray maize 

Are to be overleaped) that boy has crossed 

The whole hill-side of dew and powder-frost 

Matting the balm and mountain camomile. 

Up and up goes he, singing all the while 

Some unintelligible words to beat 

The lark, God's poet, swooning at his feet. 

So worsted is he at 'the few fine locks 

Stained like pale honey oozed from topmost rocks 

Sun-blanched the livelong summer,' — all that's left 

Of the Goito lay! " 

For detailed analysis and criticism of the 
psychical development of Sordello, the de- 
scription of which fills up the greater part 
of the poem, the reader must go elsewhere. 
Our concern here is merely to show what use 
the poet has made of the historical conditions 
of that age in building up a setting for the 
poem. Historians usually dwell principally 
upon the fights between Pope and Emperor 
to gain the ascendancy, giving little or no 
attention to the third element in the evolving 
life of the time — namely the dawning per- 
ception of the people that their rights are 
really the divine rights; not those of Pope nor 
those of Emperor. Browning makes his Sor- 
dello see this by means of his own growth 



56 BROWNING'S ITALY 

from an individualist, bent upon obtaining 
power and glory for himself, to a socialist 
type, in its broad sense, desirous of helping 
the masses of the people to rise to better con- 
ditions. Sordello, in his own person, stands 
as a symbol of this awakening tendency that 
constituted as much an element in the Renais- 
sance movement as the outburst of a desire 
for learning or the blossoming of great 
artistic talents. The human race had been 
something like a tightly closed cauldron of 
seething metals, which, reaching the boiling 
point, burst off the lid, and the vapors escaped 
first in chaotic masses, but finally to take 
shape in forms both beautiful and hideous, 
some of them fixed, and some ever changing 
their aspects. Sordello's failure to grasp the 
truth he saw when put to the test — because 
his heart could not stand the strain, typifies 
the fact that the time was not yet ripe for the 
fruition of the wavering, ever changing, yet 
upward growing ideal of democracy. It is 
picturesque for Browning to declare that we 
suffer to this day for the step Sordello did 
not take — this step being that he should 
have had the courage to serve the cause of 
the people through Ghibelline means. But 
in spite of the opinion of Mr. Bryce that had 
the emperors seen their opportunity, and 



DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 57 

been strong enough to improve it they might 
have been in part, at least, the pioneers of 
the reformation, it is decidedly doubtful 
whether the impulse of the people themselves 
was strong enough in these chaotic times to 
give the needed support to any one single in- 
dividual for the building up of a more demo- 
cratic civilization. The truth which Sordello 
saw then has in all the centuries since been 
striving for full recognition, and still there 
are thousands upon thousands unready for it, 
and still we have faith that this truth will 
finally come into its own. But that Sordello, 
or any other single arm, could have struck 
any very telling blows for the people at that 
time is to say the least, problematical, for 
like Sordello, nations and peoples are obliged 
to learn by bitter experience that love is best, 
and democracy is only another name for 
social love. 



II 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 

"A people is but the attempt of many 
To rise to the completer life of one; 
And those who live as models for the mass 
Are singly of more value than they all." 

— Luria. 

IN four out of the seven dramas written 
by Browning, he has given through the 
optic glass of his own vision a characteristic 
view of some phase of poHtical Hfe in Italy. 

With the exception of "King Victor and King 
Charles" — a tolerably accurate portrayal of 
an actual series of events in one of the side 
issues of Italian History, these plays have for 
atmosphere known historical conditions in 
the midst of which move beings of the poet's 
own imagination, such as might have existed. 

To begin with "Luria," which chronologi- 
cally comes first, the scene is Florence, the 
date 14 — , a sufiiciently vague date to allow 
one's imagination to range through the whole 
of the fifteenth century in conjuring up the 
setting of the play. Accordingly if we say 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 59 

that, broadly speaking, '*Luria" stands for 
fifteenth century Florentine civilization, we 
shall come near hitting the mark. 

The central event of the play is a war 
between Florence and Pisa. The history of 
the century has two wars between Florence 
and Pisa to show, one near the beginning of 
the century, 1406, and one near the end, 
about 1494. No events in either of these 
wars can be found exactly parallel to those 
Browning describes, yet he has taken hints 
from both to build up his imaginary situation. 

This was the century of the Medicis in 
Florence and of Savonarola, the first stand- 
ing for much that was good and for much 
that was bad in the Renaissance spirit, the 
second, for much that was good and some- 
thing that was bad in the religious attitude 
of the age. 

It is impossible here to go into the details 
of the fierce struggles which were constantly 
waged at this time, as well as earlier and later, 
between the antagonistic forces of the human 
spirit, the desire for freedom at odds with the 
desire for power making the much boasted 
liberty of Florence little more than a shadow, 
and the desire for pleasure at war with re- 
ligious aspiration leading to license on the 
one hand and finally to religious persecution 



60 BROWNING'S ITALY 

on the other. Yet out of this well nigh in- 
describable chaos arose industry and com- 
merce, intellectual power and art which will 
be the amazement of mankind to the end of 
time; for did not Florence give the world 
Dante and Giotto and Michael Angelo as 
well as nourishing the Medici and Savo- 
narola! While her great commerce was 
the envy of all nations. Mrs. Oliphant in 
her *' Makers of Florence" writes: *'It is 
curious to step out of the disturbed and tur- 
bulent city life, in which nobles and com- 
mons, poets, historians, and philosophers, 
were revolving in a continual turmoil, now 
up, now down, falling and rising and falling 
again, with all the bitter hopes and fears 
natural amid vicissitudes so painful, into the 
artist world where no such ups or downs 
seem to have existed, but where work went 
on placidly, whatever happened. Enough for 
them (the artists) that it was all to be theirs 
afterwards, and that when the factions and 
the families had done their worst and torn 
each other to pieces, and all the Magnificoes 
had had their day, they were to pass every 
one of them, and leave the silent painter, the 
patient worker in stone, omnipotent in the 
city which has come to belong to them — to 
be its princes and its potentates for ever and 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 61 

ever." And again, ** Internal conflicts, 
which showed not only in the pubKc square 
and public palace, but which convulsed every 
petty alley and made a fortress of every 
street corner; and external assault by neigh- 
boring cities, by marauding emperors, by 
now one, now another league of belligerent 
towns, backed up by bands of mercenaries, 
kept up such a continual commotion that the 
existence of the shop, the manufactory, or 
the studio behind seems almost incredible. 
Yet that background of calm to all these 
fierce contentions seems to have appeared 
entirely natural to the Florentines. Trade 
flourished among them, not only as it does 
among ourselves, underneath the brilliant 
surface on which the great and wealthy and 
non-laboring keep up a princely show, but in 
the hands of the very men who formed the 
surface of Florentine life: the same men who 
negotiated with princes, and led armies, and 
had a share in all the imperial affairs of 
Europe, yet returned to their banking houses 
or their woolen manufactories unchanged, 
talking of the botfega, the business which 
gave them their standing, with the most per- 
fect satisfaction and content in that source of 
their fortune." 

That there was no love lost between 



62 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Florence and Pisa would be understandable 
in such an age upon the mere ground that 
they were rival free cities with similar aims 
and ambitions, but there was an even more 
vital reason. Pisa was near the sea and 
possessed a fine port "Porto Pisana," and 
what would Florence do with her vast com- 
mercial relations in the event of Pisa and 
other Italian ports, Sienna and Genoa, com- 
bining to boycott Florence and prevent her 
from getting her goods to market! The 
policy of Florence had always been to fan 
the flames of rivalry and jealousy between 
these cities, but the fatal moment at last 
arrived. The cities all came under one 
ruler, Visconti; Florence was facing the ruin 
she had always dreaded when the tyrant 
Visconti luckily for her died. As one his- 
torian puts it, *'They recovered as from the 
indulgence in a long slumber; and the reduc- 
tion of Pisa from that moment became the 
first object of their ambition." The war of 
1406 resulted in a victory over Pisa and the 
commerce of Florence was put on a firm 
foundation. But the two cities did not, 
after the manner of the old fairy-tales, live 
happy ever after. A hint of the relations 
between them may be gained from Machi- 
avelli. "Pisa," he says, "should have par- 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 63 

ticipated in all the rights and privileges of 
Florence and thus have been attached by 
companionship, or else after the Roman 
fashion its walls should have been destroyed; 
but it never should have been coerced by 
citadels, which are useless in the occupation 
of a conquered town and injurious to a native 
one." At last the time was ripe. The un- 
satisfactory rule of Piero de' Medici had 
brought about civil discord in Florence and 
weakened it so that Pisa began to think of 
throwing off the yoke, and finally with the 
help of Charles VIII of France accomplished 
it. Just at this moment Piero de' Medici was 
banished, and later Charles VIII retired from 
the scene after making things very uncom- 
fortable for Florence. Freed from these dis- 
turbing influences, however, Florence was able 
to improve the internal condition of affairs 
and then turn her attention to the recon- 
quering of Pisa. Thus came about the second 
war. Certain details given in the history 
of both these wars have been used by 
Browning in the development of his situation. 
For example, we read in Napier's history, 
**The Florentine camp was accordingly 
pitched at San Piero on the river side a little 
below the town, under the Florentine com- 
missioner, Maso degli Albizzi, but more 



64 BROWNING'S ITALY 

especially Gino Capponi." Besides these com- 
missioners were the commanders, with whom 
history records Florence had difficulties. The 
army was first commanded by Jacopo Sal- 
viati, a Florentine citizen who after some use- 
ful and active service was superseded by 
Bertoldo degli Orsini: but this general, show- 
ing more rapacity than soldiership, displeased 
the Florentines and was ordered to resign his 
command to Obizzo da Monte Carelli. Two 
other commanders, Sforza da Cotignola and 
Tartaglia, showed such a spirit of rivalry 
toward each other that they were placed in 
distinct and distant commands with their 
separate forces. The attack of the Floren- 
tine forces on Pisa was repulsed, but the 
Pisans were so closely invested by land and 
sea that famine drove them to capitulation, 
though it was done through the secret nego- 
tiations of their commander, Gambacorta, 
who made such good terms for himself, that 
his actions might be regarded as distinctly 
treasonable. 

Of the second war, ninety years later, we 
read that "Ercole Bentivoglio and other 
condottieri were engaged with a large body 
of troops which under the direction of Piero 
Capponi and Francesco Valori, as 'orentine 
commissaries, recovered almost aU tiie Pisan 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 65 

territory from a badly armed and undis- 
ciplined peasantry, the sole defenders as 
yet assembled beyond the walls of Pisa; so 
that in a short time Vico Pisano, Cascina, 
and Buti were the only places that still sus- 
tained her independence." Again we read, 
'* Lucca and Sienna although afraid to de- 
clare themselves openly against Florence sent 
succours clandestinely to Pisa; the first 
supplied her with grain and three hundred 
soldiers, the second with troops alone. Ludo- 
vico the Moor, who had at first encouraged 
the Pisan revolt, although afraid openly to 
violate his engagements with Florence, re- 
ferred the Pisans to Genoa, which, notwith- 
standing its dependence on Milan, still 
retained a certain liberty of national action." 
Later we read that notwithstanding his aid 
to Pisa, Ludovico ** maintained an amiable 
intercourse with Florence" and "now ex- 
hibited more unequivocal signs of friendship 
by intimating that he wished to restore Pisa 
to Florentine dominion." To this Malpiero 
adds that "Ludovico secretly offered before 
this to assist Florence if she w^ould continue 
the subsidy of 60,000 florins that she had paid 
to his brother Galeazzo, and that Florence 
alarmed by the interference of Venice con- 
sented." 



66 BROWNING'S ITALY 

It gives one an instructive glimpse into the 
workings of a poet's mind to see what he has 
done with such hints as these in the making 
of his play. 

We find the Florentine forces encamped 
between Florence and Pisa, with Braccio, a 
Florentine Commissary, and Luria, a Moor, 
the commander of the Florentine forces. 
Around these chief characters are grouped 
Jacopo, Luria's secretary, Husain, Luria's 
Moorish friend, Puccio, the old Florentine 
commander, now Luria's chief officer, 
Tiburzio, commander of the Pisans, and 
Domizia, a noble Florentine lady and a spy, 
a position frequently given to women at that 
time. 

At first sight it would look as if Browning 
had taken from history the suggestion of a 
Moor interested in Florentine and Pisan 
affairs and made him the Florentine com- 
mander. Ludovico was of course actually not 
a Moor, the name being merely a pseudonym, 
bestowed upon him because of his dark com- 
plexion. One is tempted to draw a parallel 
here with the Christopher Moro who has been 
brought forward by some as furnishing hints 
to Shakespeare for his Othello. His name 
was also derived from his complexion. Ludo- 
vico was an Italian of the Sforza family and 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 67 

the Duke of Milan, and his interest in Floren- 
tine and Pisan affairs was all with the end in 
view of making them subject to Milan. Per- 
haps Browning had in mind, however, his 
double dealing with Florence and Pisa, when 
he makes the Pisan commander, Tiburzio, offer 
Luria the command of the Pisan forces, after 
revealing to him the underhanded intentions 
of the Florentines to indite and try him off 
hand as soon as the battle is won. 

The plot in the play hangs upon the in- 
tegrity of Luria, and Browning, instead of 
making him what the commanders and rulers 
of that day only too frequently were — 
utterly selfish, scheming and untrustworthy, 
has made him stand firm amidst suspicion 
and treachery. The question may very w^ell 
be asked why the poet chose to make this 
paragon of military honor and virtue a Moor ? 

One feels upon first reading Luria as if 
Browning desired to vindicate the character 
of the Moor against all the insults heaped 
upon it in Shakespeare's ''Othello," and had 
undertaken to show how supreme could be 
the action of an Oriental nature when placed 
in the most trying circumstances. Luria like 
Othello is a mercenary captain. Mercenary 
troops were the chief soldiers up to the 
fifteenth century, and mercenary captains 



68 BROWNING'S ITALY 

were also frequent — one of the most noted 
in Florentine history being the Englishman, 
Sir John Hawkwood ; but no Moorish captain 
flourishes in the pages of Florentine history. 
Moors there had been in plenty in Sicily 
in the days of Frederick II. He had colonies 
at Nocera and Luceria, and fought all his 
battles with Moorish troops. Learned Moors 
and Moorish ladies thronged his court, and 
through his close association with Moorish 
culture, which was in most respects far ahead 
of European culture, he stands out as one of 
the intellectual pioneers in the Renaissance 
movement, a fact already mentioned in Part I. 
But, as Draper points out, "In the eye of 
Rome all this was abomination. Were human 
laws to take the precedence of the law of God ? 
Was this new-born product of the insolence of 
human intellect — this so-called science — to 
be brought into competition with theology, 
the heaven descended ? Frederick and his 
parliaments, his laws and universities, his 
libraries, his statues, his pictures and sonnets 
were denounced." But, as Draper goes on 
to say, the fall of Frederick was not followed 
by the destruction of the influences he repre- 
sented. These not only survived him, but 
were destined in the end to overcome the 
power which had transiently overthrown them. 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 69 

While the Moors are not prominent in 
Italian history after this, there is every reason 
to suppose that there were many of them 
still in Italy at the time of this play, so that 
Browning would be quite justified in having 
a Moorish captain, though it is a little doubt- 
ful if the Florentines would have entrusted 
their forces to a so-called barbarian. In 
connection with this subject it is interesting 
to note that as early as 812 the Moors not 
only attacked Corsica and Sardinia, but in 
order to revenge a defeat which they had 
suffered from a Prankish general invaded 
Nice in the Narbonese Gaul and Civita 
Vecchia in Tuscany. This comes near 
Florence ; but still nearer to Florence did they 
come in the twelfth century, according to a 
writer of that time who reproaches Pisa with 
the Jews, the Arabians and other monsters 
of the sea who thronged in her streets. 

With a poet's prerogative, Browning has 
taken a universal view of the forces at work 
in historical development, rather than an indi- 
vidual view of persons acting in the midst of 
historical events. His portrayal of the noble 
Luria has all the sympathy which we might 
expect from a Frederick II who appreciated 
the fine qualities of intellect and heart, 
possessed by the Moors. The Florentines 



70 BROWNING'S ITALY 

in the play have all the suspicion and the 
latent hatred which the Church engendered 
in its attitude toward the Moors, while the 
complete triumph of Luria in winning the love 
of his Florentines may symbolize the final 
union of Oriental and Occidental ideals 
as it has been realized in later centuries. 

The Poet foreshadows this idea in Luria's 
fancy that the Duonio might be finished w ith 
a Moorish front, a sketch of which he makes. 
Braccio's remarks upon seeing this drawing 
in the tent sum up the whole situation. 

Brae. I see — 

A Moorish front, nor of such ill design! 
Lapo, there's one thing plain and positive; 
Man seeks his own good at the whole world's cost. 
What ? If to lead our troops, stand forth our chiefs, 
And hold our fate, and see us at their beck. 
Yet render up the charge when peace return. 
Have ever proved too much for Florentines, 
Even for the best and bravest of ourselves — 
If in the struggle when the soldier's sword 
Should sink its point before the statist's pen, 
And the calm head replace the violent hand, 
Virtue on virtue still have fallen away 
Before ambition with unvarying fate, 
Till Florence' self at last in bitterness 
Be forced to own such falls the natural end. 
And, sparing further to expose her sons 
To a vain strife and profitless disgrace, 
Declare, "The foreigner, one not my child, 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 71 

Shall henceforth lead my troops, reach height by height 
The glory, then descend into the shame; 
So shall rebeUion be less guilt in him, 
And punishment the easier task for me:" 

— If on the best of us such brand she set. 
Can I suppose an utter alien here. 

This Luria, our inevitable foe, 

Confessed a mercenary and a Moor, 

Born free from many ties that bind the rest 

Of common faith in Heaven or hope on earth, 

No past with us, no future, — such a spirit 

Shall hold the path from which our stanchest broke. 

Stand firm where every famed precursor fell ? 

My Lapo, I will frankly say, these proofs 

So duly noted of the man's intent. 

Are for the doting fools at home, not me. 

The charges here, they may be true or false: 

— What is set down ? Errors and oversights, 
A dall}ing interchange of courtesies 

With Pisa's General, — all that, hour by hour, 
Puccio's pale discontent has furnished us. 
Of petulant speeches, inconsiderate acts, 
Now overhazard, overcaution now; 
Even that he loves this lady who believes 
She outwits Florence, and whom Florence posted 
By my procurement here, to spy on me. 
Lest I one minute lose her from my sight — 
She who remembering her whole House's fall. 
That nest of traitors strangled in the birth, 
Now labors to make Luria (poor device 
As plain) the instrument of her revenge! 

— That she is ever at his ear to prompt 
Inordinate conceptions of his worth. 
Exorbitant belief in worth's reward, 



72 BROWNING'S ITALY 

And after, when sure disappointment follows, 

Proportional rage at such a wrong — • 

Why, all these reasons, while I urge them most, 

Weigh with me less than least; as nothing weigh. 

Upon that broad man's-heart of his, I go: 

On what I know must be, yet while I live 

Shall never be, because I live and know. 

Brute-force shall not rule Florence! Intellect 

May rule her, bad or good as chance supphes: 

But intellect it shall be, pure if bad. 

And intellect's tradition so kept up. 

Till the good come — 'twas intellect that ruled, 

Not brute-force bringing from the battlefield 

The attributes of wisdom, foresight's graces 

We lent it there to lure its grossness on; 

All which it took for earnest and kept safe 

To show against us in our market-place. 

Just as the plumes and tags and swordsman's-gear 

(Fetched from the camp where, at their foolish best. 

When all was done they frightened nobody) 

Perk in our faces in the street, forsooth. 

With our own warrant and allowance. No! 

The whole procedure's overcharged, — its end 

In too strict keeping with the bad first step. 

To conquer Pisa was sheer inspiration ? 

Well then, to perish for a single fault; 

Let that be simple justice! There, my Lapo! 

A Moorish front ill suits our Duomo's body: 

Blot it out — and bid Luria's sentence come! 

Another glimpse of Florentine ways is 
given in the part of Domizia who is bent upon 
revenge for the destruction of her family. Such 
incidents were of frequent occurrence in 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 73 

Florence. She hopes to make Luria the in- 
strument of her revenge, knowing that 
Florence will turn against him, she looks for 
him to take his revenge and destrov Florence. 
One after another temptations to turn 
against Florence assail Luria. First comes 
Tiburzio armed with a letter disclosing the 
intended treachery of the Florentines, to 
offer him the leadership of the Pisan forces. 
Read how Luria acts: 

Tib. Luria, you know the peril imminent 
On Pisa, — that you have us in the toils, 
Us her last safeguard, all that intercepts 
The rage of her implacablest of foes 
From Pisa: if we fall to-day, she falls. 
Though Lucca will arrive, yet, 'tis too late. 
You have so plainly here the best of it, 
That you must feel, brave soldier as you are, 
How dangerous we grow in this extreme, 
How truly formidable by despair. 
Still, probabilities should have their weight: 
The extreme chance is ours, but, that chance failing, 
You win this battle. Wherefore say I this ? 
To be well apprehended when I add, 
This danger absolutely comes from you. 
Were you, who threaten thus, a Florentine . . . 

Lur. Sir, I am nearer Florence than her sons. 
I can, and have perhaps obliged the State, 
Nor paid a mere son's duty. 

Tib. Even so. 

Were you the son of Florence, yet endued 
With all your present nobleness of soul. 



74 BROWNING'S ITALY 

No question, what I must communicate 
Would not detach you from her. 

Lur. Me, detach? 

Tih. Time urges. You will ruin presently 
Pisa, you never knew, for Florence' sake 
You think you know. I have from time to time 
Made prize of certain secret missives sent 
From Braccio here, the Commissary, home: 
And knowing Florence otherwise, I piece 
The entire chain out, from these its scattered links. 
Your trial occupies the Signory; 
They sit in judgment on your conduct now. 
When men at home inquire into the acts 
Which in the field e'en foes appreciate . . . 
Brief, they are Florentines! You, saving them, 
Seek but the sure destruction saviors find. 

Lur. Tiburzio! 

Tih. All the wonder is of course. 

I am not here to teach you, nor direct. 
Only to loyally apprise — scarce that. 
This is the latest letter, sealed and safe, 
As it left here an hour ago. One way 
Of two thought free to Florence, I command. 
The duplicate is on its road; but this, — 
Read it, and then I shall have more to say. 

Lur. Florence ! 

Tih. Now, were yourself a Florentine, 

This letter, let it hold the worst it can. 
Would be no reason you should fall away. 
The mother city is the mother still. 
And recognition of the children's service 
Her own affair; reward — there's no reward! 
But you are bound by quite another tie. 
Nor nature shows, nor reason, why at first 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 75 

A foreigner, bom friend to all alike, 

Should give himself to any special State 

More than another, stand by Florence' side 

Rather than Pisa; 'tis as fair a city 

You war against, as that you fight for — famed 

As well as she in story, graced no less 

With noble heads and patriotic hearts: 

Nor to a stranger's eye would either cause. 

Stripped of the cumulative loves and hates 

Which take importance from familiar view, 

Stand as the right and sole to be upheld. 

Therefore, should the preponderating gift 

Of love and trust, Florence was first to throw, 

Which made you hers, not Pisa's, void the scale, — 

Old ties dissolving, things resume their place, 

And all begins again. Break seal and read! 

At least let Pisa offer for you now! 

And I, as a good Pisan, shall rejoice, 

Though for myself I lose, in gaining you, 

This last fight and its opportunity; 

The chance it brings of saving Pisa yet. 

Or in the turn of battle djing so 

That shame should want its extreme bitterness. 

Lur. Tiburzio, you that fight for Pisa now 
As I for Florence . . . say my chance were yours! 
You read this letter, and you find . . . no, no! 
Too mad! 

Tib. I read the letter, find they purpose 

When I have crushed their foe, to crush me : well ? 

Lur. You, being their captain, what is it you do ? 

Tib. Why, as it is, all cities are alike; 
As Florence pays you, Pisa will pay me. 
I shall be as belied, whate'er the event. 
As you, or more: my weak head, they will say 



76 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Prompted this last expedient, my faint heart 

Entailed on them indelible disgrace, 

Both which defects ask proper punishment. 

Another tenure of obedience, mine! 

You are no son of Pisa's: break and read! 

Lur. And act on what I read ? What act were fit ? 
If the firm-fixed foundation of my faith 
In Florence, who to me stands for mankind, 
— If that break up and, disimprisoning 
From the abyss . . . Ah friend, it cannot be! 
You may be very sage, yet — all the world 
Having to fail, or your sagacity, 
You do not wish to find yourself alone! 
What would the world be worth ? Whose love be sure ? 
The world remains: you are deceived! 

Tib. Your hand! 

I lead the vanguard. — If you fall, beside. 
The better, I am left to speak! For me, 
This was my duty, nor would I rejoice 
If I could help, it misses its effect; 
And after all you will look gallantly 
Found dead here with that letter in your breast. 

Lur. Tiburzio — I would see these people once 
And test them ere I answer finally! 
At your arrival let the trumpet sound: 
If mine return not then the wonted cry 
It means that I believe — am Pisa's ! 

Tih. Well! 

\Goes. 

Lur. My heart will have it he speaks true! My blood 
Beats close to this Tiburzio as a friend. 
If he had stept into my watch-tent, night 
And the wild desert full of foes around, 
I should have broke the bread and given the salt 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 77 

Secure, and, when my hour of watch was done, 

Taken my turn to sleep between his knees 

Safe in the untroubled brow and honest cheek. 

Oh world, where all things pass and naught abides, 

Oh life, the long mutation — is it so ? 

Is it with life as with the body's change ? 

— Where, e'en though better follow, good must pass. 

Nor manhood's strength can mate with boyhood's grace, 

Nor age's wisdom, in its turn, find strength, 

But silently the first gift dies away, 

And though the new stays, never both at once. 
Life's time of savage instinct o'er with me. 
It fades and dies away, past trusting more. 
As if to punish the ingratitude 
With which I turned to grow in these new lights, 
And learned to look with European eyes. 
Yet it is better, this cold certain way. 
Where Braccio's brow tells nothing, Puccio's mouth, 
Domizia's eyes reject the searcher: yes! 
For on their calm sagacity I lean, 
Their sense of right, deliberate choice of good. 
Sure, as they know my deeds, they deal with me. 
Yes, that is better — that is best of all! 
Such faith stays when mere wild belief would go. 
Yes — when the desert creature's heart, at fault 
Amid the scattering tempest's pillared sands. 
Betrays its step into the pathless drift — 
The calm instructed eye of man holds fast 
By the sole bearing of the visible star. 
Sure that when slow the whirling wreck subside. 
The boundaries, lost now, shall be found again, — 
The palm-trees and the pyramid over all. 
Yes: I trust Florence: Pisa is deceived. 

{Enter Braccio, Puccio, and Domizia.) 



78 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Brae. Noon's at an end : no Lucca ? You must fight. 

Lur. Do you remember, ever, gentle friends, 
I am no Florentine ? 

Dom. It is yourself 

Who still are forcing us, importunately, 
To bear in mind what else we should forget. 

Lur. For loss! — for what I lose in being none! 
No shrewd man, such as you yourselves respect, 
But would remind you of the stranger's loss 
In natural friends and advocates at home. 
Hereditary loves, even rivalships 
With precedent for honor and reward. 
Still, there's a gain, too! If you take it so, 
The stranger's lot has special gain as well. 
Do you forget there was my own far East 
I might have given away myself to, once. 
As now, to Florence and for such a gift. 
Stood there like a descended deity ? 
There, worship waits us : what is it waits here ? 

[Shows the letter. 
See! Chance has put into my hand the means 
Of knowing w^hat I earn, before I work. 
Should I fight better, should I fight the worse, 
With payment palpably before me ? See ! 
Here lies my whole reward! Best learn it now 
Or keep it for the end's entire delight ? 

Brae. If you serve Florence as the vulgar serve. 
For swordsman's pay alone, — break seal and read! 
In that case, you will find your full desert. 

Lur. Give me my one last happy moment, friends! 
You need me now, and all the graciousness 
This letter can contain will hardly balance 
The after-feeling that you need no more. 
This moment . . . oh, the East has use with you! 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 79 

Its sword still flashes — is not flung aside 
With the past praise, in a dark corner yet! 
How say you ? 'Tis not so with Florentines — 
Captains of yours: for them, the ended war 
Is but a first step to the peace begun: 
He who did well in war, just earns the right 
To begin doing well in peace, you know: 
And certain my precursors, — would not such 
Look to themselves in such a chance as mine. 
Secure the ground they trod upon, perhaps ? 
For I have heard, by fits, or seemed to hear. 
Of strange mishap, mistake, ingratitude, 
Treachery even. Say that one of you 
Surmised this letter carried what might turn 
To harm hereafter, cause him prejudice: 
What would he do ? 

Dom. [Hastily.] Thank God and take revenge! 
Hurl her own force against the city straight! 
And, even at the moment when the foe 
Sounded defiance . . . 

[TiBURzio's trumpet sounds in the distance. 

Lur. Ah, you Florentines! 

So would you do? W^isely for you, no doubt! 
My simple Moorish instinct bids me clench 
The obligation you relieve me from, 

Still deeper! [To Puc] Sound our answer, I should say, 
And thus : — [Tearing the paper.] — The battle! That solves 
every doubt. 

WTien Luria, having won the battle and 
taken Tiburzio prisoner, learns the full measure 
of Florentine intention against him, he ex- 
claims 



80 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Lur. Hear them! All these against one foreigner! 
And all this while, where is, in the whole world, 
To his good faith a single witness ? 

Tib. \Who has entered unseen during the 'preceding dia- 
logue.] Here ! 
Thus I bear witness, not in word but deed. 
I hve for Pisa; she's not lost to-day 
By many chances — much prevents from that ! 
Her army has been beaten, I am here. 
But Lucca comes at last, one happy chance! 
I rather would see Pisa three times lost 
Than saved by any traitor, even by you; 
The example of a traitor's happy fortune 
Would bring more evil in the end than good; — 
Pisa rejects the traitor, craves yourself! 
I, in her name, resign forthwith to you 
My charge, — the highest office, sword and shield! 
You shall not, by my counsel, turn on Florence 
Your army, give her calumny that ground — 
Nor bring one soldier: be you all we gain! 
And all she'll lose, — a head to deck some bridge, 
And save the cost o' the crown should deck the head. 
Leave her to perish in her perfidy. 
Plague-stricken and stripped naked to all eyes, 
A proverb and a by-word in all mouths! 
Go you to Pisa! Florence is my place — 
Leave me to tell her of the rectitude, 
I, from the first, told Pisa, knowing it. 
To Pisa! 

Dom. Ah my Braccio, are you caught ? 

Brae. Puccio, good soldier and good citizen. 
Whom I have ever kept beneath my eye. 
Ready as fit, to serve in this event 
Florence, who clear foretold it from the first — 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 81 

Through me, she gives you the command and charge 

She takes, through me, from him who held it late! 

A painful trial, very sore, was yours: 

All that could draw out, marshal in array 

The selfish passions 'gainst the public good — 

SHghts, scorns, neglects, were heaped on you to bear: 

And ever you did bear and bow the head! 

It had been sorry trial, to precede 

Your feet, hold up the promise of reward 

For luring gleam; your footsteps kept the track 

Through dark and doubt: take all the light at once! 

Trial is over, consummation shines; 

Well have you served, as well henceforth command! 

Puc. No, no ... I dare not! I am grateful, glad; 
But Luria — you shall understand he's wronged: 
And he's my captain — this is not the way 
We soldiers climb to fortune: think again! 
The sentence is not even passed, beside! 
I dare not: where 's the soldier could? 

Lur. Now, Florence — 

Is it to be ? You will know all the strength 
O' the savage — to your neck the proof must go ? 
You will prove the brute nature? Ah, I see! 
The savage plainly is impassible — 
He keeps his calm way through insulting words. 
Sarcastic looks, sharp gestures — • one of which 
Would stop you, fatal to your finer sense. 
But if he stolidly advance, march mute 
Without a mark upon his callous hide. 
Through the mere brushwood you grow angry with. 
And leave the tatters of your flesh upon, 
— You have to learn that when the true bar comes, 
The murk mid-forest, the grand obstacle, 
Which when you reach, you give the labor up. 



82 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Nor dash on, but lie down composed before, 

— He goes against it, like the brute he is : 
It falls before him, or he dies in his course. 
I kept my course through past ingratitude: 
I saw — it does seem, now, as if I saw, 
Could not but see, those insults as they fell, 

— Ay, let them glance from off me, very like. 
Laughing, perhaps, to think the quahty 

You grew so bold on, while you so despised 
The Moor's dull mute inapprehensive mood. 
Was saving you: I bore and kept my course. 
Now real wrong fronts me: see if I succumb! 
Florence withstands me ? I will punish her. 

At night my sentence will arrive, you say. 
Till then I cannot, if I would, rebel 
V — Unauthorized to lay my office down. 
Retaining my full power to will and do: 
After — it is to see. Tiburzio, thanks! 
Go; you are free: join Lucca! I suspend 
All further operations till to-night. 
Thank you, and for the silence most of all! 
[To Brac] Let my complacent bland accuser go 
Carry his self -approving head and heart 
Safe through the army which would trample him 
Dead in a moment at my word or sign! 
Go, sir, to Florence; tell friends what I say — 
That while I wait my sentence, theirs waits them! 
[To DoM.] You, lady, — you have black Italian eyes! 
I would be generous if I might: oh, yes — 
For I remember how so oft you seemed 
Inclined at heart to break the barrier down 
Which Florence finds God built between us both. 
Alas, for generosity! this hour 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 83 

Asks retribution: bear it as you may, 

I must — the Moor — the savage, — pardon you ! 

Puccio, my trusty soldier, see them forth! 

Later he is visited by Husain, then Domizia, 
both urging him to take his revenge on 
Florence. But he is loyal even unto death. 

Lur. Thus at the last must figure Luria, then! 
Doing the various work of all his friends. 
And answering every purpose save his own. 
No doubt, 'tis well for them to wish; but him — 
After the exploit what were left ? Perchance 
A little pride upon the swarthy brow. 
At having brought successfully to bear 
'Gainst Florence' self her own especial arms, — 
Her craftiness, impelled by fiercer strength 
From Moorish blood than feeds the northern wit. 
But after! — once the easy vengeance willed. 
Beautiful Florence at a word laid low 

— (Not in her domes and towers and palaces. 
Not even in a dream, that outrage!) — low, 
As shamed in her own eyes henceforth forever. 
Low, for the rival cities round to laugh. 
Conquered and pardoned by a hireling Moor! 

— For him, who did the irreparable wrong. 
What would be left, his hfe's illusion fled, — 
What hope or trust in the forlorn wide world ? 
How strange that Florence should mistake me so! 
Whence grew this ? What withdrew her faith from me ? 
Some cause! These fretful-blooded children talk 
Against their mother, — they are wronged, they say — 
Notable wrongs her smile makes up again! 

So, taking fire at each supposed offence. 



84 BROWNING'S ITALY 

They may speak rashly, suffer for their speech: 

But what could it have been in word or deed 

Thus injured me ? Some one word spoken more 

Out of my heart, and all had changed perhaps. 

My fault, it must have been, — for, what gain they ? 

Why risk the danger? See, what I could do! 

And my fault, wherefore visit upon them. 

My Florentines ? The notable revenge 

I meditated! To stay passively. 

Attend their summons, be as they dispose! 

Why, if my very soldiers keep the rank. 

And if my chieftains acquiesce, what then ? 

I ruin Florence, teach her friends mistrust, 

Confirm her enemies in harsh belief, 

And when she finds one day, as find she must, 

The strange mistake, and how my heart was hers. 

Shall it console me, that my Florentines 

Walk with a sadder step, in graver guise, 

Who took me with such frankness, praised me so. 

At the glad outset ? Had they loved me less, 

They had less feared what seemed a change in me. 

And after all, who did the harm ? Not they! 

How could they interpose with those old fools 

I' the council ? Suffer for those old fools' sake — 

They, who made pictures of me, sang the songs 

About my battles ? Ah, we Moors get blind 

Out of our proper world, where we can see! 

The sun that guides is closer to us ! There — 

There, my own orb! He sinks from out the sky! 

Why, there! a whole day has he blessed the land. 

My land, our Florence all about the hills. 

The fields, and gardens, vineyards, olive-grounds. 

All have been blest — and yet we Florentines, 

With souls intent upon our battle here. 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 85 

Found that he rose too soon, or set too late, 

Gave us no vantage, or gave Pisa much — 

Therefore we wronged him! Does he turn in ire 

To burn the earth that cannot understand ? 

Or drop out quietly, and leave the sky. 

His task once ended ? Night wipes blame away. 

Another morning from my East shall spring 

And find all eyes at leisure, all disposed 

To watch and understand its work, no doubt. 

So, praise the new sun, the successor praise. 

Praise the new Luria and forget the old! 

[Taking a phial from his breast. 
— Strange! This is all I brought from my own land 
To help me: Europe would supply the rest. 
All needs beside, all other helps save one! 
I thought of adverse fortune, battle lost, 
The natural upbraiding of the loser. 
And then this quiet remedy to seek 
At end of the disastrous day. [He drinks. 

'Tis sought! 
This was my happy triumph-morning: Florence 
Is saved: I drink this, and ere night, — die! Strange! 

In the last act, through his proved nobihty 
he wins the hearts and undying allegiance of 
his Florentines, who learn only when too late 
that the restitution they would make has been 
put by Luria, himself, beyond their power. 
Tiburzio and Braccio, the rival leaders, both 
bear witness to his worth: 

Tib. I return 

From Florence: I serve Pisa, and must think 



86 BROWNING'S ITALY 

By such procedure I have served her best. 
A people is but the attempt of many 
To rise to the completer life of one; 
And those who live as models for the mass 
Are singly of more value than they all. 
Such man are you, and such a time is this. 
That your sole fate concerns a nation more 
Than much apparent welfare: that to prove 
Your rectitude, and duly crown the same. 
Imports us far beyond to-day's event, 
A battle's loss or gain: man's mass remains, — 
Keep but God's model safe, new men will rise 
To take its mould, and other days to prove 
How great a good was Luria's glory. True — 
I might go try my fortune as you urged. 
And, joining Lucca, helped by your disgrace. 
Repair our harm — so were to-day's work done; 
But where leave Luria for our sons to see ? 
No, I look farther. I have testified 
(Declaring my submission to your arms) 
Her full success to Florence, making clear 
Your probity, as none else could: I spoke, 
And out it shone! 

Lur. Ah — until Braccio spoke! 

Brae. Till Braccio told in just a word the whole — 
His lapse to error, his return to knowledge: 
Which told . . . Nay, Luria, I should droop the head, 
I whom shame rests with! Yet I dare look up, 
Sure of your pardon now I sue for it. 
Knowing you wholly. Let the midnight end! 
'Tis morn approaches! Still you answer not.^ 
Sunshine succeeds the shadow passed away; 
Our faces, which phantasmal grew and false, 
Are all that felt it: they change round you, turn 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 87 

Truly themselves now in its vanishing. 

Speak, Luria! Here begins your true career: 

Look up, advance! All now is possible 

Fact's grandeur, no false dreaming! Dare and do! 

And every prophecy shall be fulfilled 

Save one — (nay, now your word must come at last) 

— That you would punish Florence! 

Hus. [Pointing to Luria 's dead body.] That is done. 

Whether there ever existed in the flesh 
such great and noble Moors as EngHshmen 
have Uked to portray — men Uke Shake- 
speare's "Othello," Scott's "Saladin," Brown- 
ing's '* Luria" it is impossible to say, yet we 
do certainly know that the Moors possessed 
a refinement and culture which put Europe 
to shame at the time of the Crusades, and 
long after, and that their influence was one 
of the great civilizing influences of the Middle 
Ages in Europe, spreading from Spain into 
Southern France and from thence to Sicily and 
Italy. Striking examples of the stage they had 
reached is seen in the fact that in Cordova 
one could walk ten miles on a paved street 
at night lighted by lamps, seven hundred years 
before they had even dreamed of one street 
lamp in London, or in Paris that streets needed 
other paving than mud; and in the common 
schools, geography was taught with a globe, 
when the rest of Europe considered it bias- 



88 BROWNING'S ITALY 

phemous to regard the earth as anything but 
flat. 

With the exception of the reference to the 
Duomo, Luria's mention of her ''domes and 
towers and palaces," and the hnes given at^ 
the close, this play does not show us any 
pictures of the Florence of that day, though 
be it said, it differed much from the Florence 
of to-day. The Ponta Vecchio, alone, with its 
ancient buildings shows a complete bit of the 
Florence of the Middle Ages. 

Wide streets have been made and many 
of the dismal fort-like palaces have been 
modified. The walls no longer exist, though 
some of the old gates have been left standing 
as monuments, an illustration of one of which 
we give, Porto Romano, through which we 
may think of Luria as often passing. 

If we imagine Luria to be the captain of 
the Pisan war of 1406, there was no Pitti 
Palace with its treasures, no Riccardi, no 
Strozzi, but if we imagine the date to be 1495, 
all these would have been built or building. 
The Ufizzi, however, would not yet be in 
existence. Luria might go to church in 
San Marco, San Lorenzo, Santa Croce, or 
San Michele, but evidently his devotion w^as 
given to the great Cathedral Santa Maria 
del Fiore which he longed to have had com- 




O 

z 

» 

2 

d 

o 
o 

« 
O 
Oh 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 89 

pleted with a Moorish front. At that time, 
the fa9ade of this Cathedral was built only a 
third of the way up. They had in those days 
a curious fashion of leaving the fa9ade of their 
cathedrals until the last, with the idea of mak- 
ing it the crowning glory of the building. Un- 
fortunately, it frequently happened that the 
facade was never built at all. 

In the present instance the facade was 
finally completed as late as 1887, the original 
building having been begun in 1298. The 
history of this cathedral is interesting, taking 
us back as it does to the very daw^n of 
Italian art. The decree of the city read "The 
wisest men of this city do hereby opine and 
resolve that the Republic will undertake 
nothing unless with a determination that 
the performance shall be commensurate 
with the grandeur of the idea, which has 
emanated from the whole community." It 
was begun by Arnolfo di Cambio who died 
in 1300. The work stopped for thirty 
years and then Giotto was appointed Master 
Builder, and assisted by Andrea Pisano he 
continued the Cathedral according to x\rnolfo's 
designs. 

The first fa9ade w^as attributed to Giotto, 
but it seems investigations lately made have 
revealed the fact that it was not begun until 



90 BROWNING'S ITALY 

twenty years after Giotto's death, and that 
it was the joint design of several artists, 
Neri di Fioravante, Benci, Cione, Francesco 
Salsetti, Andrea Orcagna, Taddeo Gaddi, 
and Nicolo Tommasi. The design was 
Gothic, with columns and niches containing 
statues of the Madonna and Child, of saints 
and prophets and Florentine citizens. 

We may imagine Luria gazing upon this 
unfinished fa9ade and in 1490, if w^e choose, 
sympathizing with the Guild of Wool in its 
decision that the design for this fa9ade being 
contrary to architectural rules, its reconstruc- 
tion would be resolved upon. A meeting was 
held in the Cathedral at which many artists 
attended, but in spite of the fact that Lo- 
renzo de' Medici was in favor of the plan, no 
satisfactory decision was reached and not 
until 1575 was the order finally issued for its 
demolition. Some of the frescos and statues 
were carried inside the Cathedral, and a new 
fa9ade begun which was also condemned. 
A final interesting bit of information in rela- 
tion to the Cathedral was unearthed not long 
ago by Mr. Ernest Radford, who found a 
sketch for a Moorish front in a small museum 
in Florence. Browning, however, did not 
know of this and wrote to Dr. Furnivall of 
the London Browning Society, that he *' never 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 91 

heard nor dreamed there had been any such 
notion at any time of a Moorish Front for 
the Duomo, it was altogether a fancy of 
my own illustrative of the feelings natural to 
Luria and Braccio, each after his kind." 

During this fifteenth century the dome of 
the Cathedral, designed by Brunelleschi, was 
in process of construction. This architect 
conceived the idea of an octagonal cupola to 
rest upon the dome raised above the roof, in 
1417, and in 1420 he was accepted as archi- 
tect. To borrow Mrs. Oliphant's picturesque 
phraseology: '*Thus day by day, the great 
dome swelled out over the shining marble 
walls and rose against the beautiful Italian 
sky. Nothing like it had been seen before 
by living eyes. The solemn grandeur of the 
Pantheon at Rome was indeed known to 
many, and San Giovanni w^as in some sort an 
imitation of that; but the immense structure 
of the cupola, so justly poised, springing with 
such majestic grace from the familiar walls 
to which it gave new dignity, flattered the 
pride of the Florentines as something unique, 
besides delighting the eyes and imagination 
of so beauty-loving a race. With that veiled 
and subtle pride, which takes the shape of 
pious fear, some even pretended to tremble, 
lest it should be supposed to be too near an 



92 BROWNING'S ITALY 

emulation of the blue vault above, and that 
Florence was competing with heaven; others, 
with the delightful magniloquence of the 
time, declared that the hills around the city 
were scarcely higher than the beautiful 
Duomo; and Vasari himself has a doubt that 
the heavens were envious, so persistent were 
the storms amid which the cupola arose." 

This Florence Luria loved so well that 
he would fain delay the battle that was to 
give it peace: 

" I wonder, do you guess why I delay 

Involuntarily the final blow 

As long as possible? Peace follows it! 

Florence at peace, and the calm studious heads 

Come out again, the penetrating eyes; 

As if a spell broke, all's resumed, each art 

You boast, more vivid that it slept awhile. 

'Gainst the glad heaven, o'er the white palace-front 

The interrupted scaffold climbs anew; 

The walls are peopled by the painter's brush; 

The statue to its niche ascends to dwell. 

The present noise and trouble have retired 

And left the eternal past to rule once more; 

You speak its speech and read its records plain, 

Greece lives with you, each Roman breathes your friend: 

But Luria — where will then be Luria's place ? " 

In the "Soul's Tragedy," the connection 
with actual history is still more remote. It 
is dated with the same delightful vagueness as 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 93 



'*Luria," simply 15 — . It may easily be 
conjectured, however, that it is Italy after the 
Sack of Rome, Italy under the yoke of foreign 
rule, that Italy which was described by Eng- 
lishmen from the court of Henry VIII as full 
of greater wretchedness than was to be found 
anywhere else in Christendom. The best 
towns were either in ruins or depopulated. 
The plain between Vercelli and Pa via, fifty 
miles in length, once so fertile in grains and 
vines was reduced to a desert. The fields 
were uncultivated. They saw *'not the 
shadow" of a human creature except three 
poor W'omen gathering a few grapes. 

The political events responsible for this 
state of affairs are brought before the reader 
with such clearness and terseness by Sedg- 
wick in a passage in his Italian History that 
we cannot do better than quote it in full: 

" The struggle between the Barbarians of 
France and Spain for Mastery in Italy was 
practically decided by the battle of Pavia 
(1525) in which the French King lost all but 
life and honor. France was most reluctant 
to acquiesce in defeat, and from time to time 
marched her troops across the Alps into un- 
fortunate Piedmont, sometimes of her own 
motion, and sometimes at the invitation of 
an Italian state; but the Spanish grip was too 



94 BROWNING'S ITALY 

strong to be shaken off. From this time on 
Italian politics were determined by the pleas- 
ure of foreign kings. Two treaties between 
France and Spain, that of Cambria (1529) 
and that of Cateau-Cambresis (1559) em- 
bodied the results of their bargains and 
their wars. The sum and substance of them 
was a practical abandonment by France of 
her Italian claims, and the map of Italy was 
drawn to suit Spain. 

"Milan was governed by Spanish gover- 
nors, Naples and Sicily by Spanish viceroys. 
The business of a Spanish viceroy, then as 
always, was to raise money. Taxes were 
oppressive. It was said that in Sicily the 
royal officials nibbled, in Naples they ate, 
and in Milan they devoured. In addition 
to regular taxes, special imports were laid on 
various occasions, — when a new king suc- 
ceeded to the throne, when a royal heir was 
born, when war was waged against the 
Lutherans in Germany, or the pirates in 
Africa." 

The Pope's Legate, Ogniben, in this play 
remarks more than once that he has known 
three-and-twenty leaders of revolt. It is not 
surprising that such conditions should lead 
to the springing up of patriots and saviours 
of their country, who thirsted for the blood 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 95 

of their tyrants and not unfrequently mur- 
dered them. Florence itself was the scene 
of such a murder. Alessandro de' Medici, 
grandson of Lorenzo the Magnificent, was 
placed at the head of the government with the 
title of ''Duke of the Republic." He proved 
himself, Napier relates, "the most detestable 
of tyrants, maintained absolute power by 
the help of foreign mercenaries, and, having 
disgraced his reign by the commission of 
every crime known even in that depraved 
age, was murdered in his bed, after a reign 
of seven years, by his cousin, Lorenzino. 
The latter probably hoped to pose as a 
saviour of his country, but lost his self con- 
fidence and fled, leaving Florence once more 
without a government. Now would have 
been the time to proclaim a republic; but the 
oligarchy which had been the minister of 
Alessandro's crimes did not dare to face the 
popular indignation, and contrived, by means 
of the soldiers of the late duke, to place 
another Medici upon the throne before the 
people in general had recovered from the 
surprise into which Lorenzino's action had 
thrown them." 

The Prelate of the play, the clever Ogniben, 
has all the marks of the culture of the clergy 
of the Renaissance, with an added sense of 



96 BROWNING'S ITALY 

integrity which might well mark a man be- 
longing to the time of the Catholic revival. 
This renewal of moral feeling strangely enough 
went hand in hand with the political degen- 
eration. Before the foreign invasions the 
prelates of Rome were conspicuous for their 
shameless dissoluteness. There seemed to be 
no crime of which they were not capable. 
But, to quote Sedgwick again: '*At the end 
of the century (the sixteenth) the Papacy 
stood erect and vigorous, shorn indeed of 
universal empire, but reestablished, the Order 
of Jesus (founded by Ignatius Loyola, and 
vowed to poverty, chastity, and obedience to 
the Papacy) at its right, the Holy Inquisition 
at its left, draped in piety by the council of 
Trent, and hobnobbing on even terms with 
Kings. 

"The same spirit that caused the Reforma- 
tion in the North, started the Catholic Re- 
vival in the South. A wave comparable to 
the old movement for Church reform in Hilde- 
brand's time, swept over the Catholic Church, 
and lifted the reformers within the church 
into power. The South emulated the North. 
Catholic zeal rivaled Protestant ardor. 
Bigotry followed zeal. Moreover, a reformed 
Papacy found ready allies. The logical con- 
sequence of Protestantism was personal in- 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 97 

dependence in religion, and the next logical 
step was personal independence in politics. 
Protestant subjects, more especially when 
their rulers were Catholic, tended to become 
disobedient; and monarchs, who stood for 
absolutism, found themselves drawn close to 
an absolute and conservative Pope. The 
Kings of Spain and the Popes of Rome be- 
came friends and allies." 

Such we may suppose to be the political 
conditions in which Chiappino, the hero of 
"A Soul's Tragedy" and a leader of revolt, 
lived his little day. The play does not exist 
for the sake of these conditions, but in order 
that this particular leader of revolt may show 
whereof he is made. He turns out to be a 
patriot of very poor stuff indeed — a man, 
bent upon his own gain, which he hides under 
a cloak of righteousness, deceiving not only 
to others but to himself. He could slay a 
tvrant and with the turn of fortune become 
himself a tyrant, and produce logical argu- 
ments to prove that it is a sign of his own 
extraordinary development, and probably be- 
lieve them, for an egotist of this type sincerely 
believes any interpretation of himself which 
will bolster him up in serving his own ends. 

x\s a matter of fact, Chiappino did not 
kill the tyrant of the play, who was struck 



98 BROWNING'S ITALY 

down by his friend Luitolfo. He helps his 
friend to escape and takes the deed upon 
himself — not in his inmost soul because he 
wants to save his friend, but because he 
wants the glory ; proved by the fact that, when 
the populace infests the house of Luitolfo, 
and instead of arresting Chiappino, proclaim 
him their saviour, he does not disabuse them, 
but takes the triumph which should have been 
his friend's. 

(Enter the Populace.) 

Ch. I killed the Provost! 

The Populace. [Speaking together.] 'Twas Chiappino, 
friends ! 
Our savior! The best man at last as first! 
He who first made us feel what chains we wore. 
He also strikes the blow that shatters them, 
He at last saves us — our best citizen! 
— Oh, have you only courage to speak now ? 
My eldest son was christened a year since 
"Cino" to keep Chiappino 's name in mind — 
Cino, for shortness merely, you observe! 
The city's in our hands. The guards are fled. 
Do you, the cause of all, come down — come up — 
Come out to counsel us, our chief, our king, 
Whate'er rewards you! Choose your own reward! 
The peril over, its reward begins! 
Come and harangue us in the market-place! 

Eu. Chiappino ? 

Ch. Yes — I understand your eyes ! 

You think I should have promptlier disowned 
This deed with its strange unforeseen success, 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 99 

In favor of Lultolfo. But the peril, 

So far from ended, hardly seems begun. 

To-morrow, rather, when a calm succeeds. 

We easily shall make him full amends: 

And meantime — if we save them as they pray. 

And justify the deed by its effects ? 

Eu. You would, for worlds, you had denied at once. 

Ch. I know my own intention, be assured! 
All's well. Precede us, fellow-citizens! 

Before this he had shown forth his nature 
in his subtle insinuations that his love for 
Luitolfo's betrothed, Eulalia, was greater than 
his friend's. He sings his own praises to 
Eulalia in the following manner after she 
assures him that she has never loved him: 

Ck. That's sad. Say what I might. 

There was no help from being sure this while 
You loved me. Love like mine must have return, 
I thought: no river starts but to some sea. 
And had you loved me, I could soon devise 
Some specious reason why you stifled love, 
Some fancied self-denial on your part, 
Which made you choose Luitolfo; so, excepting 
From the wide condemnation of all here. 
One woman. Well, the other dream may break! 
K I knew any heart, as mine loved you. 
Loved me, though in the vilest breast 'twere lodged, 
I should, I think, be forced to love again: 
Else there's no right nor reason in the world. 

In the end his nature is completely exposed 
by the Pope's legate, Ogniben, whose astute- 



100 BROWNING'S ITALY 

ness in showing the weak points in Chiap- 
pino's philosophy may be sixteenth century 
ItaHan, but certainly could not be more up 
to date if it had been written in the twentieth 
century instead of in the first part of the 
nineteenth. 

Everything appears to go smoothly with 
Chiappino for a time, he has been engaged to 
his friend's betrothed and is about to be 
installed as Provost when Ogniben begins 
his arraignment of him. This part of the 
play is written in prose. Browning, very 
fittingly, having divided Chiappino's life into 
two parts, first, the poetry of it, then the 
prose. 

Enter Chiappino and Eulalia 
Eu. We part here, then ? The change in your principles 
would seem to be complete. 

Ch. Now, why refuse to see that in my present course I 
change no principles, only re-adapt them and more adroitly ? 
I had despaired of what you may call the material instru- 
mentality of hfe; of ever being able to rightly operate on 
mankind through such a deranged machinery as the existing 
modes of government: but now, if I suddenly discover how 
to inform these perverted institutions with fresh purpose, 
bring the functionary limbs once more into immediate com- 
munication with, and subjection to, the soul I am about to 
bestow on them — do you see ? Why should one desire to 
invent, as long as it remains possible to renew and transform ? 
When all further hope of the old organization shall be extinct, 
then, I grant you, it may be time to try and create another. 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 101 

Eu. And there being discoverable some hope yet in the 
hitherto much-abused old system of absolute government by 
a Provost here, you mean to take your time about endeavor- 
ing to realize those visions of a perfect State we once heard of ? 

Ch. Say, I would fain realize my conception of a palace, 
for instance, and that there is, abstractedly, but a single way 
of erecting one perfectly. Here, in the market-place is my 
allotted building-ground; here I stand without a stone to lay, 
or a laborer to help me, — stand, too, during a short day of 
life, close on which the night comes. On the other hand, 
circumstances suddenly offer me (turn and see it!) the old 
Provost's house to experiment upon — ruinous, if you please, 
wrongly constructed at the beginning, and ready to tumble 
now. But materials abound, a crowd of workmen offer 
their services; here exists yet a Hall of Audience of originally 
noble proportions, there a Guest-chamber of symmetrical 
design enough: and I may restore, enlarge, abolish or unite 
these to heart's content. Ought I not make the best of such 
an opportunity, rather than continue to gaze disconsolately 
with folded arms on the flat pavement here, while the sun goes 
slowly down, never to rise again .'* Since you cannot under- 
stand this nor me, it is better we should part as you desire. 

Eu. So, the love breaks away too! 

Ch. No, rather my soul's capacity for love widens — 
needs more than one object to content it, — and, being better 
instructed, w^ill not persist in seeing all the component parts 
of love in what is only a single part, — nor in finding that so 
many and so various loves are all united in the love of a 
woman, — manifold uses in one instrument, as the savage 
has his sword, staff, sceptre and idol, all in one club-stick. 
Love is a very compound thing. The intellectual part of 
my love I shall give to men, the mighty dead or the illustrious 
living; and determine to call a mere sensual instinct by as 
few fine names as possible. What do I lose? 



102 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Eu. Nay, I only think, what do I lose? and, one more 
word — which shall complete my instruction — does friend- 
ship go too? What of Luitolfo, the author of your present 
prosperity ? 

Ch. How the author? 

Eu. That blow now called yours ... 

Ch. Struck without principle or purpose, as by a blind 
natural operation: yet to which all my thought and life directly 
and advisedly tended. I would have struck it, and could 
not: he would have done his utmost to avoid striking it, yet 
did so. I dispute his right to that deed of mine — a final 
action with him, from the first effect of which he fled away, 
— a mere first step with me, on which I base a whole mighty 
superstructure of good to follow. Could he get good from it ? 

Eu. So we profess, so we perform! 

(Enter Ogniben. Eulalia stands apart.) 

Ognihen. I have seen three-and-twenty leaders of revolts. 
By your leave, sir! Perform? What does the lady say of 
performing ? 

Ch. Only the trite saying, that we must not trust profes- 
sion, only performance. 

Ogni. She'll not say that, sir, when she knows you longer; 
you'll instruct her better. Ever judge of men by their pro- 
fessions! For though the bright moment of promising is but 
a moment and cannot be prolonged, yet, if sincere in its 
moment's extravagant goodness, why, trust it and know the 
man by it, I say — not by his performance; which is half the 
world's work, interfere as the world needs must, with its 
accidents and circumstances: the profession was purely the 
man's own. I judge people by what they might be, — not 
are, nor will be. 

Ch. But have there not been found, too, performing 
natures, not merely promising ? 

Ogni. Plenty. Little Bindo of our town, for instance, 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 103 

promised his friend, great ugly Masaccio, once, "I will repay 
you! " — for a favor done him. So, when his father came to 
die, and Bindo succeeded to the inheritance, he sends straight- 
way for Masaccio and shares all with him — gives him half 
the land, half the money, half the kegs of wine in the cellar. 
"Good," say you: and it is good. But had httle Bindo 
found himself possessor of all this wealth some five years 
before — on the happy night when Masaccio procured him 
that interview in the garden with his pretty cousin Lisa — 
instead of being the beggar he then was, — I am bound to 
believe that in the warm moment of promise he would have 
given away all the wine-kegs and all the money and all the 
land, and only reserved to himself some hut on a hilltop hard 
by, whence he might spend his life in looking and seeing his 
friend enjoy himself: he meant fully that much, but the world 
interfered. — To our business! Did I understand you just 
now within-doors ? You are not going to marry your old 
friend's love, after all ? 

Ch. I must have a woman that can sympatize with, and 
appreciate me, I told you. 

Ogni. Oh, I remember! You, the greater nature, needs 
must have a lesser one ( — avowedly lesser — contest with 
you on that score would never do) — such a nature must 
comprehend you, as the phrase is, accompany and testify of 
your greatness from point to point onward. Why, that were 
being not merely as great as yourself, but greater considerably! 
Meantime, might not the more bounded nature as reasonably 
count on your appreciation of it, rather ? — on your keeping 
close by it, so far as you both go together, and then going on 
by yourself as far as you please ? Thus God serves us. 

Ch. And yet a woman that could understand the whole 
of me, to whom I could reveal alike the strength and the 
weakness — 

Ogni, Ah, my friend, wish for nothing so foohsh! Wor- 



104 BROWNING'S ITALY 

ship your love, give her the best of you to see; be to her Hke 
the western lands (they bring us such strange news of) to the 
Spanish Court; send her only your lumps of gold, fans of 
feathers, your spirit-like birds, and fruits and gems! So 
shall you, what is unseen of you, be supposed altogether a 
paradise by her, — as these western lands by Spain : though 
I warrant there is filth, red baboons, ugly reptiles and squalor 
enough, which they bring Spain as few samples of as possible. 
Do you want your mistress to respect your body generally ? 
Offer her your mouth to kiss: don't strip off your boot and 
put your foot to her lips! Yoii understand my humor by 
this time? I help men to carry out their own principles: if 
they please to say two and two make five, I assent, so they 
will but go on and say, four and four make ten. 

Ch. But these are my private affairs; what I desire you 
to occupy yourseK about, is my public appearance presently: 
for when the people hear that I am appointed Provost, though 
you and I may thoroughly discern — and easily, too — the 
right principle at bottom of such a movement, and how my 
republicanism remains thoroughly unaltered, only takes a 
form of expression hitherto commonly judged (and hereto- 
fore by myself) incompatible with its existence, — when thus 
I reconcile myself to an old form of government instead of 
proposing a new one — 

Ogni. Why, you must deal with people broadly. Begin 
at a distance from this matter and say, — New truths, old 
truths! sirs, there is nothing new possible to be revealed to us 
in the moral world; we know all we shall ever know: and it 
is for simply reminding us, by their various respective ex- 
pedients, how we do know this and the other matter, that men 
get called prophets, poets and the like. A philosopher's life 
is spent in discovering that, of the half-dozen truths he knew 
when a child, such an one is a lie, as the world states it in set 
terms; and then, after a weary lapse of years, and plenty of 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 105 

hard thinking, it becomes a truth again after all, as he hap- 
pens to newly consider it and view it in a different relation 
with the others: and so he re-states it, to the confusion of 
somebody else in good time. As for adding to the original 
stock of truths, — impossible! Thus, you see the expression 
of them is the grand business: — you have got a truth in your 
head about the right way of governing people, and you took 
a mode of expressing it which now you confess to be imper- 
fect. But what then .^ There is truth in falsehood, false- 
hood in truth. No man ever told one great truth, that I 
know, without the help of a good dozen of lies at least, gen- 
erally unconscious ones. And as when a child comes in 
breathlessly and relates a strange story, you try to conjecture 
from the very falsities in it what the reality was, — do not 
conclude that he saw nothing in the sky, because he assuredly 
did not see a flying horse there as he says, — so, through the 
contradictory expression, do you see, men should look pain- 
fully for, and trust to arrive eventually at, what you call the 
true principle at bottom. Ah, what an answer is there! to 
what will it not prove apph cable ^ — • " Contradictions ? Of 
course there were," say you! 

Ch. Still, the world at large may call it inconsistency, and 
what shall I urge in reply ? 

Ogni. Why, look you, w^hen they tax you with tergiversa- 
tion or duplicity, you may answer — you begin to perceive 
that, when all's done and said, both great parties in the State, 
the advocators of change in the present system of things, and 
the opponents of it, patriot and anti-patriot, are found w^ork- 
ing together for the common good; and that in the midst of 
their efforts for and against its progress, the world somehow 
or other still advances: to which result they contribute in 
equal proportions, those who spend their life in pushing it 
onward, as those who give theirs to the business of pulling it 
back. Now, if you found the world stand still between the 



106 BROWNING'S ITALY 

opposite forces, and were glad, I should conceive you: but it 
steadily advances, you rejoice to see! By the side of such a 
rejoicer, the man who only winks as he keeps cunning and 
quiet, and says, "Let yonder hot-headed fellow fight out my 
battle: I, for one, shall win in the end by the blows he gives, 
and which I ought to be giving," — even he seems graceful 
in his avowal, when one considers that he might say, "I shall 
win quite as much by the blows our antagonist gives him, 
blows from which he saves me — I thank the antagonist 
equally!" Moreover, you may enlarge on the loss of the 
edge of party-animosity with age and experience . . . 

Ch. And naturally time must wear off such asperities: 
the bitterest adversaries get to discover certain points of 
similarity between each other, common sympathies — do 
they not? 

Ogni. Ay, had the young David but sat first to dine on 
his cheeses with the Philistine, he had soon discovered an 
abundance of such common sympathies. He of Gath, it is 
recorded, was born of a father and mother, had brothers and 
sisters like another man, — they, no more than the sons of 
Jesse, were used to eat each other. But, for the sake of one 
broad antipathy that had existed from the beginning, David 
slung the stone, cut off the giant's head, made a spoil of it, 
and after ate his cheeses alone, with the better appetite, for 
all I can learn. My friend, as you, with a quickened eye- 
sight, go on discovering much good on the worse side, re- 
member that the same process should proportionably magnify 
and demonstrate to you the much more good on the better 
side! And when I profess no sympathy for the Gohaths of 
our time, and you object that a large nature should sympa- 
thize with every form of intelligence, and see the good in it, 
however hmited, — I answer, "So I do; but preserve the 
proportions of my sympathy, however finelier or widelier I 
may extend its action." I desire to be able, with a quickened 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 107 

eyesight, to descry beauty in corruption where others see 
foulness only; but I hope I shall also continue to see a re- 
doubled beauty in the higher forms of matter, where already 
everybody sees no foulness at all. I must retain, too, my old 
power of selection, and choice of appropriation, to apply to 
such new gifts; else they only dazzle instead of enlightening 
me. God has his archangels and consorts with them : though 
he made too, and intimately sees what is good in, the worm. 
Observe, I speak only as you profess to think and so ought to 
speak: I do justice to your own principles, that is all. 

Ch. But you very well know that the two parties do, on 
occasion, assume each other's characteristics. What more 
disgusting, for instance, than to see how promptly the newly 
emancipated slave will adopt, in his own favor, the very 
measures of precaution, which pressed soreliest on himself 
as institutions of the tyranny he has just escaped from ? Do 
the classes, hitherto without opinion, get leave to express 
it.'' there follows a confederacy immediately, from which 

— exercise your individual right and dissent, and woe be 
to you! 

Ogni. And a journey over the sea to you! That is the 
generous way. Cry — "Emancipated slaves, the first excess, 
and off I go!" The first time a poor devil, who has been 
bastinadoed steadily his whole life long, finds himself let 
alone and able to legislate, so, begins pettishly, while he 
rubs his soles, "Woe be to whoever brings anything in the 
shape of a stick this way!" — you, rather than give up the 
very innocent pleasure of carrying one to switch flies with, 

— you go away, to everybody's sorrow. Yet you were quite 
reconciled to staying at home while the governors used to 
pass, every now and then, some such edict as, "Let no man 
indulge in owning a stick which is not thick enough to chas- 
tise our slaves, if need require! " Well, there are pre-ordained 
hierarchies among us, and a profane vulgar subjected to a 



108 BROWNING'S ITALY 

different law altogether; yet I am rather sorry you should see 
it so clearly : for, do you know what is to — all but save you 
at the Day of Judgment, all you men of genius ? It is this: 
that, while you generally began by pulling dow^n God, and 
went on to the end of your life in one effort at setting up your 
own genius in his place, — still, the last, bitterest concession 
wrung with the utmost unwillingness from the experience of 
the very loftiest of you, was invariably — would one think it ? 
— that the rest of mankind, down to the lowest of the mass, 
stood not, nor ever could stand, just on a level and equality 
with yourselves. That will be a point in the favor of all such, 
I hope and believe. 

Ch. Why, men of genius are usually charged, I think, 
with doing just the reverse; and at once acknowledging the 
natural inequality of mankind, by themselves participating 
in the universal craving after, and deference to, the civil 
distinctions which represent it. You wonder they pay such 
undue respect to titles and badges of superior rank. 

Ogni. Not I (always on your own ground and showing, 
be it noted!) Who doubts that, with a w^eapon to brandish, 
a man is the more formidable ? Titles and badges are exer- 
cised as such a weapon, to which you and I look up wistfully. 
We could pin lions with it moreover, while in its present own- 
er's hands it hardly prods rats. Nay, better than a mere 
weapon of easy mastery and obvious use, it is a mysterious 
divining-rod that may serve us in undreamed-of ways. Beauty, 
strength, intellect — men often have none of these, and yet 
conceive pretty accurately what kind of advr.ntages they 
would bestow on the possessor. We know at least what it is 
we make up our mind to forego, and so can apply the fittest 
substitute in our power. Wanting beauty, we cultivate 
good-humor; missing wit, we get riches: but the mystic un- 
imaginable operation of that gold collar and string of Latin 
names which suddenly turned poor stupid little peevish Cecco 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 109 

of our town into natural lord of the best of us — a Duke, he 
is now — there indeed is a virtue to be reverenced! 

Ch. Ay, by the vulgar: not by Messere Stiatta the poet, 
who pays more assiduous court to him than anybody. 

Ogni. What else should Stiatta pay court to? He has 
talent, not honor and riches: men naturally covet what they 
have not. 

Ch. No; or Cecco would covet talent, which he has not, 
whereas he covets more riches, of which he has plenty, already. 

Ogni. Because a purse added to a purse makes the holder 
twice as rich: but just such another talent as Stiatta's, added 
to what he now possesses, what would that profit him ? Give 
the talent a purse indeed, to do something with! But lo, how 
we keep the good people waiting! I only desired to do 
justice to the noble sentiments which animate you, and which 
you are too modest to duly enforce. Come, to our main 
business : shall we ascend the steps ? I am going to propose 
you for Provost to the people; they know your antecedents, 
and will accept you with a joyful unanimity: whereon I con- 
firm their choice. Rouse up! Are you nerving yourself to 
an effort ? Beware the disaster of Messere Stiatta we were 
talking of! who, determining to keep an equal mind and 
constant face on whatever might be the fortune of his last 
new poem with our townsmen, heard too plainly "hiss, hiss, 
hiss," increase every moment. Till at last the man fell 
senseless: not perceiving that the portentous sounds had all 
the while been issuing from between his own nobly clenched 
teeth, and nostrils narrowed by resolve. 

Ch. Do you begin to throw off the mask .? — to jest with 
me, having got me effectually into your trap ? 

Ogni. Where is the trap, my friend ? You hear what I 
engage to do, for my part: you, for yours, have only to fulfil 
your promise made just now within doors, of professing 
unlimited obedience to Rome's authority in my person. 



110 BROWNING'S ITALY 

And I shall authorize no more than the simple re-establish- 
ment of the Provostship and the conferment of its privileges 
upon yourself: the only novel stipulation being a birth of the 
peculiar circumstances of the time. 

Ch. And that stipulation? 

Ogni. Just the obvious one — that in the event of the 
discovery of the actual assailant of the late Provost . . . 

Ch. Ha! 

Ogni. Why, he shall suffer the proper penalty, of course; 
what did you expect ? 

Ch. Who heard of this ? 

Ogni. Rather, who needed to hear of this ? 

Ch. Can it be, the popular rumor never reached you . . . 

Ogni. Many more such rumors reach me, friend, than I 
choose to receive: those which wait longest have best chance. 
Has the present one sufficiently waited } Now is its time for 
entry with effect. See the good people crowding about yon- 
der palace-steps — which we may not have to ascend, after 
all! My good friends! (nay, two or three of you will answer 
every purpose) — who was it fell upon and proved nearly 
the death of your late Provost? His successor desires to 
hear, that his day of inauguration may be graced by the act 
of prompt, bare justice we all anticipate. Who dealt the 
blow that night, does anybody know ? 

Luit. [Coming forward]. I! 

All. Luitolfo! 

Luit. I avow the deed, justify and approve it, and stand 
forth now, to relieve my friend of an unearned responsibility. 
Having taken thought, I am grown stronger: I shall shrink 
from nothing that awaits me. Nay, Chiappino — we are 
friends still: I dare say there is some proof of your superior 
nature in this starting aside, strange as it seemed at first. So, 
they tell me, my horse is of the right stock, because a shadow 
in the path frightens him into a frenzy, makes him dash my 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 111 

brains out. I understand only the dull mule's way of stand- 
ing stockishly, plodding soberly, suffering on occasion a blow 
or two with due patience. 

Eu. I was determined to justify my choice, Chiappino; 
to let Luitolfo's nature vindicate itself. Henceforth we are 
undivided, whatever be our fortune. 

Ogni. Now, in these last ten minutes of silence, what 
have I been doing, deem you ? Putting the finishing stroke 
to a homily of mine, I have long taken thought to perfect, on 
the text, "Let whoso thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he 
fall." To your house, Luitolfo! Still silent, my patriotic 
friend ? Well, that is a good sign, however. And you will 
go aside for a time.'^ That is better still. I understand: it 
would be easy for you to die of remorse here on the spot and 
shock us all, but you mean to live and grow worthy of coming 
back to us one day. There, I will tell everybody; and you 
only do right to believe you must get better as you get older. 
All men do so: they are worst in childhood, improve in man- 
hood, and get ready in old age for another world. Youth, 
with its beauty and grace, would seem bestowed on us for 
some such reason as to make us partly endurable till we 
have time for really becoming so of ourselves, without their 
aid; when they leave us. The sweetest child we all smile on 
for his pleasant want of the whole world to break up, or suck 
in his mouth, seeing no other good in it — would be rudely 
handled by that world's inhabitants, if he retained those 
angelic infantine desires when he had grown six feet high, 
black and bearded. But, little by little, he sees fit to forego 
claim after claim on the world, puts up with a less and less 
share of its good as his proper portion; and when the octo- 
genarian asks barely a sup of gruel and a fire of dry sticks, 
and thanks you as for his full allowance and right in the 
common good of life, — hoping nobody may murder him, 
— he who began by asking and expecting the whole of us to 



112 BROWNING'S ITALY 

bow down in worship to him, — why, I say he is advanced, 
far onward, very far, nearly out of sight hke our friend Chiap- 
pino yonder. And now — (ay, good-by to you ! He turns 
round the northwest gate: going to Lugo again? Good-by!) 
— And now give thanks to God, the keys of the Provost's 
palace to me, and yourselves to profitable meditation at 
home! I have known Foi^r-and-twenty leaders of revolts. 

The drama, "King Victor and King 
Charles," Hke *' Strafford," is a true historical 
play in which the poet has used imagination 
only in the development of real historical 
personages, into whose mouths he puts 
language, doubtless true to their natures, if 
not such as they ever actually uttered. 

The episode in history which he has drama- 
tized is the story of the relation between 
Victor, King of Sardinia and his son Charles, 
afterwards king. 

The accounts of Victor Amadeus II are 
somewhat contradictory and confused, but 
the poet with a poet's privilege has seized those 
points which would tell best dramatically. 
Gathering these up from the histories of Vol- 
taire, Costa da Beauregard, and Gallenga, the 
story runs as follows: 

Victor was born in 1666 and succeeded his 
father under the regency of his mother in 
1675. He had a warlike and brilliant career 
and succeeded in building up for himself an 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 113 

independent kingdom. In 1713, by the treaty 
of Utrecht, Savoy was recognized as an in- 
dependent state and he was made King of 
Sicily, but soon exchanged this title for 
that of king of Sardinia. Later events 
having made it probable that the Bourbons 
would return to Italy again, Victor and all 
the other European monarchs became anxious 
at the prospect. Victor received propositions 
from both France and Austria to join 
with them in case of a rupture. After 
having wavered between them for some 
time, he finally made secret engagements 
with both. In June, 1730, he received from 
the Emperor of Austria a sum of money, 
with the promise that he and his descendants 
should be governors of Milan in pcrpetuo if 
he would never separate his interests from 
those of Austria. A few days after, the 
Spanish Minister, having had a secret audience 
with him, made him flattering offers if he 
would declare himself for the Bourbons. 
He accepted this offer also, but at last, seeing 
that his intrigues were about to be discovered, 
decided to abdicate, affecting a philosophic 
love of repose which was far from his charac- 
ter, as proved by his attempt later to re- 
mount the throne. According to Gallenga 
in his history of Piedmont, the later years of 



114 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Victor were crowned with unprecedented 
prosperity, and his abdication was really due 
to weariness of the world and a doting fond- 
ness for his new bride, while his desire to 
return to rule was due to the ennui he suf- 
fered in his retreat at Chambery and the 
ambition of the Marchioness, who had set her 
heart on being queen. 

The story is told a little differently by 
Lord Orrery in one of his letters from 
Italy, and, as he had actually seen King 
Charles and heard the story related as the 
gossip of the time, it may be interesting to 
quote from this letter, which also gives 
glimpses of Turin and the palace as it existed 
at that time: 

*'The city of Turin, dear sir, is not large, 
nor can it in any sense be called magnificent. 
The same may be said of the King's palace, 
most part of the outward building being old 
and unfinished. The royal apartments of 
Turin consist of a great number of small 
rooms, many of them indeed only closets ; but 
so delicately fitted up, so elegantly furnished 
and so properly adorned, that, in passing 
from room to room, the whole appears a fairy 
castle. Amidst all these exquisite decorations, 
not one effeminate toy, not one Chinese 
dragon nor Indian monster is to be seen. 




5 

2 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 115 

"Almost every room in the palace is filled 
with pictures, none indifferent; most of them 
by the best Flemish masters. The whole 
collection, except a very small number, be- 
longed to prince Eugene and were bought 
after his death by the present King of Sar- 
dinia. The floors of the King's apartments 
are inlaid, and so nicely kept that you view 
yourself as you walk upon them. The 
chapel, which opens into the great church, 
is not answerable to any other part of the 
palace. It is clean, but it is heavy and dis- 
mal. The pillars are of black marble. The 
lamps and tapers give little light and less 
cheerfulness. At the first entrance it appears 
like a melancholy mausoleum. 

"The king in his younger days is said to 
have been of a gay and sprightly disposition; 
but soon after the death of his father he con- 
tracted a more serious behavior, which is 
now growing apace into the melancholy of 
devotion. 

"One particular anecdote of the Sardinian 
monarch was related to me, as a certain 
truth. If the eagerness of the chase happens 
accidentally to lead him near Montcallier, 
he turns his eyes and horse as fast as possible 
from the castle. His father died there under 
such circumstances as must affect a son. 



/ 



116 BROWNING'S ITALY 

"Victor Amadeus, father of the present 
King of Sardinia, had made a considerable 
figure in the annals of Europe. He had 
appeared a great soldier, and was known to 
be a great politician. In the decline of his 
life, the latter part of that character was not 
a little sullied. He involved himself in a 
disadvantageous treaty with France, and he 
degraded his royalty by a marriage. The 
lady, whom he chose for his wife, in the same 
private manner that the famous Maintenon 
had been chosen bv Lewis XIV, was called 
Madam de Sebastien. She was the widow 
of an officer of that name. She had been 
maid of honor to the King's mother. She 
was at that time extremely handsome, but 
always of an intriguing, ambitious temper. 
The King had paid his addresses to her not 
unsuccessfully in his youth. Now finding 
himself absolutely constrained to fulfil his 
impolitic engagements with France, he deter- 
mined to resign his crown to his son, who 
being under no such engagements, might 
openly repair the injudicious step which his 
father had taken. On one and the same 
day Amadeus delivered up his crown and 
married his former mistress, whom he had 
not long before created Marchioness di 
Spigno, a town in Italy in the duchy of 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 117 

Montferat. His abdication was public; his 
marriage was private. The King and the 
Marchioness immediately retired to Cham- 
bery. The young King soon acted the part 
in which he had been fully instructed by his 
father, mingling with it a scene or two of his 
own. He discarded King Victor's ministers 
and favorites, but still maintained all the 
outward tokens of duty and respect, which 
he owed his father, who soon grew impatient 
and weary of retirement, and wished to return 
to business, power and a throne. His new 
consort was equally desirous to taste the 
splendor of a crown, and to command in the 
circle of a court. They both repented, not 
of their marriage, but of their retreat. 

" Chambery,in its utmost magnificence, was 
too melancholy a situation and had too much 
the air of a prison to calm and alleviate the 
struggles of such restless minds. The King 
and the lady kept up a constant correspond- 
ence with the discontented Piedmontese, 
especially those in Turin. A plot was formed. 
The King was to dethrone his son, and to 
reassume the reins of government. Meas- 
ures to this end were taken with all possible 
secrecy. The King complained of the air 
of Chambery. His son attended to his com- 
plaint with the deepest filial attachment. 



118 BRO^VNING'S ITALY 

Amadeus was permitted to approach nearer 
to the capital. He came to RivoU, that 
hunting seat which I mentioned in my last. 
The air of Rivoli disagreed with him. He 
was suffered to come still nearer, and was 
lodged at his own request in the castle of 
Montcallier, a noble palace within a very 
little distance of Turin. There the embers 
of ambition soon kindled into a flame. The 
fire was on the point of breaking out when 
the heat of it began to be felt by the young 
king and his ministers. They had only time 
to stop Amadeus as he was going into his 
coach under a pretence of visiting, but with 
a resolution of seizing the citadel of Turin. 
In a moment he became his son's prisoner in 
the castle of Montcallier. His wife was 
abruptly torn from him. They met no more. 
He was treated with respect, but guarded 
with the closest strictness. He often desired 
to see his son. The interview was promised, 
but the promise was not performed. Rage, 
grief and disappointment ended, in less than 
two years, the life of this unhappy prince, 
whose sunset was excessively languid in 
comparison of his meridian glory. 

"Affairs of state probably constrained the 
present king to act as he did; but deep has 
been the impression which his father's catas- 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 119 

trophe has left on his mind. Perhaps the 
late King extorted from his son a private 
promise of restoring the crown. Policy and 
majesty soon put a stop to the designs, if 
any, of answering that promise." 

Here Browning deliberately departs from 
history and causes Charles to return the 
crown to his father. Loyalty and love to his 
father are the ruling impulses of Charles's 
life as the poet portrays him, and while he 
also has loyalty and love to his subjects, 
when these two come in conflict his devotion 
to his father conquers. 

Beauregard emphasizes this filial devotion 
in his account of the scene between the 
father and son upon the former's resignation 
of the crown. "He called his son to him, 
and declared to him his design. The young 
prince, astonished, troubled, fearing perhaps 
that this overture was only a trap in order 
to prove him, said to the King all that was 
proper to turn him from such a design. He 
prayed the King, if he really thought a time 
of repose was necessary to his health, to con- 
fer upon him the temporary exercise of 
authority, reserving the right to re-take the 
crown when he thought proper. He ended 
by throwing himself at his father's feet and 
conjuring him to change his resolution." 



120 BROWNING'S ITALY 

For the character of d'Ormea, the Minister 
in this play, the poet took a hint from Vol- 
taire. "He was a man without birth, whom 
Victor found in utter misery. This minister 
had rendered him the service of ending the 
differences with the Court of Rome, which 
had existed during a great part of his reign. 
He obtained for him a more favorable agree- 
ment than Victor had been able to obtain for 
himself." Of him, Blondel says, "he had more 
mind, more transcendent qualities, above all, 
more audacity and confidence in himself, 
than any of the other ministers. It is cer- 
tain he had all the favor of King Victor. He 
had many enemies, having, while he was 
manager of the finances, brought about the 
reunion of the fiefs with the domain, and 
treated with the Court of Rome. The 
nobility and clergy hated him." 

In the play there are but four characters, 
Victor, Charles, d'Ormea, and Polyxena, the 
wife of Charles. The historical events are 
in reality merely the factors by means of 
which the natures of these four individuals 
reveal themselves. 

Charles is made at first of a timid, vacil- 
lating nature, but the help and encourage- 
ment of his wife, combined with the sudden 
thrusting of power upon him make a man of 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 121 

him and he governs so well that he is much 
beloved by his people. Victor is an almost 
exact picture of the historical Victor, astute 
and unscrupulous, while d'Ormea, at first 
the match of his master in all underhanded 
schemes for self-advancement, is really won 
over to rectitude by the fine, unselfish nature 
of Charles. 

To illustrate the masterful handling of his 
material by the poet we give the scene of 
Victor's abdication and the scene of his 
retaking of the Crown. 

KING VICTOR 

PART II 

Enter King Victor, bearing the regalia an a cushiony from 
his apaHment. He calls loudly — 

D'Ormea! — for patience fails me, treading thus 
Among the obscure trains I have laid, — my knights 
Safe in the hall here — in that anteroom, 
My son, — D'Ormea, where ? Of this, one touch — 

[Laying down the crown. 
This fireball to these mute black cold trains — then 
Outbreak enough! 

[Contemplating it.] To lose all, after all! 
This, glancing o'er my house for ages — shaped. 
Brave meteor, like the crown of Cyprus now, 
Jerusalem, Spain, England, every change 
The braver, — and when I have clutched a prize 
My ancestry died wan with watching for. 



122 BROWNING'S ITALY 

To lose it! — by a slip, a fault, a trick 

Learnt to advantage once and not unlearned 

When past the use, — "just this once more" (I thought) 

"Use it with Spain and Austria happily. 

And then away with trick!" An oversight 

I'd have repaired thrice over, any time 

These fifty years, must happen now! There's peace 

At length; and I, to make the most of peace, 

Ventured my project on our people here, 

As needing not their help: which Europe knows. 

And means, cold-blooded, to dispose herself 

(Apart from plausibihties of war) 

To crush the new-made King — who ne'er till now 

Feared her. As Duke, I lost each foot of earth 

And laughed at her: my name was left, my sword 

Left, all was left! But she can take, she knows. 

This crown, herseK conceded . . . 

That's to try. 
Kind Europe! — My career's not closed as yet! 
This boy was ever subject to my will. 
Timid and tame — the fitter! — D'Ormea, too — 
What if the sovereign also rid himself 
Of thee, his prime of parasites ? — I delay! 
D'Ormea! 

(As D'Ormea enters, the King seats himself.) 
My son, the Prince — attends he ? 

D'O. Sir, 

He does attend. The crown prepared! — it seems 
That you persist in your resolve. 

Victor. Who's come ? 

The chancellor and the chamberlain ? My knights ? 

D'O. The whole Annunziata ? If, my liege. 
Your fortune had not tottered worse than now . . . 

Vic. Del Borgo has drawn up the schedules ? mine — 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 123 

My son's, too? Excellent! Only, beware 
Of the least blunder, or we look but fools. 
First, you read the Annulment of the Oaths; 
Del Borgo follows . . . no, the Prince shall sign; 
Then let Del Borgo read the Instrument: 
On which, I enter. 

D'O. Sir, this may be truth; 

You, sir, may do as you affect — may break 
Your engine, me, to pieces: try at least 
If not a spring remain worth saving! Take 
My counsel as I've counselled many times! 
What if the Spaniard and the Austrian threat? 
There's England, Holland, Venice — which ally 
Select you ? 

Vic. Aha! Come, D'Ormea, — "truth" 

Was on your lip a minute since. Allies ? 
I've broken faith with Venice, Holland, England 
— As who knows if not you ? 

D'O. But why with me 

Break faith — with one ally, your best, break faith ? 

Vic. When first I stumbled on you. Marquis — 'twas 
At Mondovi — a little lawyer's clerk . . . 

D'O. Therefore your soul's ally! — who brought you 
through 
Your quarrel with the Pope, at pains enough — 
Who simply echoed you in these affairs! 
On whom you cannot therefore visit these 
Affairs' ill fortune — whom you trust to guide 
You safe (yes, on my soul) through these affairs! 

Vic. I was about to notice, had you not 
Prevented me, that since that great town kept 
With its chicane D'Ormea's satchel stuffed 
And D'Ormea's self sufficiently recluse. 
He missed a sight, — my naval armament 



124 BROWNING'S ITALY 

When I burned Toulon. How the skiff exults 
Upon the galliot's wave! — rises its height, 
O'ertops it even; but the great wave bursts. 
And hell-deep in the horrible profound 
Buries itself the galliot: shall the skiff 
Think to escape the sea's black trough in turn ? 
Apply this: you have been my minister 

— Next me, above me possibly; — sad post, 
Huge care, abundant lack of peace of mind; 
Who would desiderate the eminence ? 

You gave your soul to get it; you'd yet give 
Your soul to keep it, as I mean you shall, 
D'Ormea! What if the wave ebbed with me? 
Whereas it cants you to another crest; 
I toss you to my son; ride out your ride! 

D'O. Ah, you so much despise me? 

Vic. You, D'Ormea? 

Nowise: and I'll inform you why. A king 
Must in his time have many ministers. 
And I've been rash enough to part with mine 
When I thought proper. Of the tribe, not one 
(. . . . Or wait, did Pianezze? . . . ah, just the same!) 
Not one of them, ere his remonstrance reached 
The length of yours, but has assured me (commonly 
Standing much as you stand, — or nearer, say. 
The door to make his exit on his speech) 

— I should repent of what I did. D'Ormea, 
Be candid, you approached it when I bade you 
Prepare the schedules! But you stopped in time, 
You have not so assured me: how should I 
Despise you then ? 

{Enter Charles.) 
Vic. {Changing his tone.] Are you instructed ? Do 
My order, point by point! About it, sir! 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 125 

D'O. You SO despise me! [Aside.] One last stay re- 
mains — 
The boy's discretion there. 

[To Cha.] For your sake, Prince, 
I pleaded, wholly in your interest. 
To save you from this fate! 

Cha. [Aside.] Must I be told 

The Prince was supplicated for — by him ? 

Vic. [To D'O.] Apprise Del Borgo, Spava, and the rest, 
Our son attends them; then return. 

D'O. One word! 

Cha. [Aside.] A moment's pause and they would drive 
me hence, 
I do believe! 

D'O. [Aside.] Let but the boy be firm! 

Vic. You disobey? 

Cha. [To D'O.] You do not disobey 

Me, at least. ' Did you promise that or no ? 

D'O. Sir, I am yours: what would you ? Yours am I! 

Cha. When I have said what I shall say, 'tis like 
Your face will ne'er again disgust me. Go! 
Through you, as through a breast of glass, I see. 
And for your conduct, from my youth till now. 
Take my contempt! You might have spared me much. 
Secured me somewhat, nor so harmed yourself: 
That's over now. Go, ne'er to come again! 

D'O. As son, the father — father, as the son! 
My wits! My wits! [Goes. 

Vic. [Seated.] And you, what meant you, pray, 
Speaking thus to D'Ormea ? 

Cha. Let us not 

Waste words upon D'Ormea! Those I spent 
Have half unsettled what I came to say. 
His presence vexes to my very soul. 



126 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Vic. One called to manage a kingdom, Charles, needs 
heart 
To bear up under worse annoyances 
Than seems D'Ormea — to me, at least. 

Cha. [Aside.] Ah, good! 

He keeps me to the point! Then be it so. 
[Aloud.] Last night, sir, brought me certain papers — 

these — 
To be reported on, — your way of late. 
Is it last night's result that you demand ? 

Vic. For God's sake, what has night brought forth.? 
Pronounce 
The . . . what's your w^ord.^ — result! 

Cha. Sir, that had proved 

Quite worthy of your sneer, no doubt : — a few 
Lame thoughts, regard for you alone could wring. 
Lame as they are, from brains like mine, believe! 
As 'tis, sir, I am spared both toil and sneer. 
These are the papers. 

Vic. Well, sir? I suppose 

You hardly burned them. Now for your result! 

Cha. I never should have done great things, of course, 
But . . .oh my father, had you loved me more! 

Vic. Loved ? [Aside.] Has D'Ormea played me false, I 
wonder ? 
[Aloud.] Why, Charles, a king's love is diffused — yourself 
May overlook, perchance, your part in it. 
Our monarchy is absolutest now 
In Europe, or my trouble's thrown away. 
I love, my mode, that subjects each and all 
May have the power of loving, all and each. 
Their mode: I doubt not, many have their sons 
To trifle w4th, talk soft to, all day long: 
I have that crown, this chair, D'Ormea, Charles! 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 127 

Cha. 'Tis well I am a subject then, not you. 

Vic. [Aside.] D'Ormea has told him everything. [Aloud.\ 
Aha! 
I apprehend you: when all's said, you take 
Your private station to be prized beyond 
My own, for instance ? 

Cha. — Do and ever did 

So take it: 'tis the method you pursue 
That grieves . . . 

Vic. These words! Let me express, my friend. 
Your thoughts. You penetrate what I supposed 
Secret. D'Ormea phes his trade betimes! 
I purpose to resign my crown to you. 

Cha. To me .? 

Vic. Now, — in that chamber. 

Cha. You resign 

The crown to me ? 

Vic. And time enough, Charles, sure? 

Confess with me, at four- and-sixty years 
A crown's a load. I covet quiet once 
Before I die, and summoned you for that. 

Cha. 'Tis I will speak: you ever hated me. 
I bore it, — have insulted me, borne too — 
Now you insult yourself; and I remember 
What I believed you, what you really are. 
And cannot bear it. What! My life has passed 
Under your eye, tormented as you know, — 
Your whole sagacities, one after one. 
At leisure brought to play on me — to prove me 
A fool, I thought and I submitted; now 
You'd prove . . . what would you prove me ? 

Vic. This to me.'' 

I hardly know you! 

Cha. Know me ? Oh indeed 



128 BROWNING'S ITALY 

You do not! Wait till I complain next time 
Of my simplicity! — for here's a sage 
Knows the world well, is not to be deceived. 
And his experience, and his Macchiavels, 
D'Ormeas, teach him — what ? — that I this while 
Have envied him his crown! He has not smiled, 
I warrant, — has not eaten, drunk, nor slept. 
For I was plotting with my Princess yonder! 
Who knows what we might do or might not do ? 
Go now, be politic, astound the world! 
That sentry in the antechamber — nay, 
The varlet who disposed this precious trap 

[Pointing to the crown. 
That was to take me — ask them if they think 
Their own sons envy them their posts! — Know me! 

Vic. But you know me, it seems: so, learn, in brief. 
My pleasure. This assembly is convened . . . 

Cha. Tell me, that woman put it in your head! 
You were not sole contriver of the scheme. 
My father! 

Vic. Now observe me, sir! I jest 

Seldom — on these points, never. Here, I say. 
The knights assemble to see me concede. 
And you accept, Sardinia's crown. 

Cha. Farewell! 

'Twere vain to hope to change this: I can end it. 
Not that I cease from being yours, when sunk 
Into obscurity: I'U die for you, 
But not annoy you with my presence. Sir, 
Farewell! Farewell! 

(Enter D'Ormea.) 

D'O. [^m?e.] Ha, sure he's changed again — 
Means not to fall into the cunning trap! 
Then, Victor, I shall escape you, Victor! 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 129 

Vic. [Suddenly placing the crown upon the head of 
Charles.] D'Ormea, your King! 
[To Cha.] My son, obey me! Charles, 

Your father, clearer-sighted than yourself. 
Decides it must be so. 'Faith, this looks real! 
My reasons after; reason upon reason 
After: but now, obey me! Trust in me! 
By this, you save Sardinia, you save me! 
Why, the boy swoons! [To D'O.] Come this side! 

jD'O. [As Charles turns from him to Victor.] You 
persist ? 

Vic. Yes, I conceive the gesture's meaning. 'Faith, 
He almost seems to hate you : how is that ? 
Be reassured, my Charles! Is't over now? 
Then, Marquis, tell the new King what remains 
To do! A moment's work. Del Borgo reads 
The Act of Abdication out, you sign it. 
Then I sign; after that, come back to me. 

D'O. Sir, for the last time, pause! 

Vic. Five minutes longer 

I am your sovereign. Marquis. Hesitate — 
And I'll so turn those minutes to account 
That . . . Ay, you recollect me! [Aside.] Could I bring 
My foolish mind to undergo the reading 
That Act of Abdication! 

[As Charles motions D'Ormea to precede him. 
Thanks, dear Charles! 

[Charles and D'Ormea retire. 

Vic. A novel feature in the boy, — indeed 
Just what I feared he wanted most. Quite right. 
This earnest tone: your truth, now for effect! 
It answers every purpose: with that look. 
That voice, — I hear him: "I began no treaty," 
(He speaks to Spain,) "nor ever dreamed of this 



130 BROWNING'S ITALY 

You show me; this I from my soul regret; 

But if my father signed it, bid not me 

Dishonor him — who gave me all, beside:*' 

And, "true," says Spain, "'twere harsh to visit that 

Upon the Prince." Then come the nobles trooping: 

"I grieve at these exactions — I had cut 

This hand off ere impose them; but shall I 

Undo my father's deed ?" — and they confer: 

"Doubtless he was no party, after all; 

Give the Prince time!" 

Ay, give us time, but time! 
Only, he must not, when the dark day comes, 
Refer our friends to me and frustrate all. 
We'll have no child's play, no desponding fits. 
No Charles at each cross turn entreating Victor 
To take his crown again. Guard against that! 

(Enter D'Ormea.) 
Long live King Charles! 

No — Charles's counsellor! 
Well, is it over. Marquis ? Did I jest ? 

D'O. " King Charles ! " What then may you be ? 

Vic. Anything! 

A country gentleman that, cured of bustle, 
Now beats a quick retreat toward Chambery, 
Would hunt and hawk and leave you noisy folk 
To drive your trade without him. I'm Count Remont — 
Count Tende — any little place's Count! 

D'O. Then Victor, Captain against Catinat 
At Staffarde, where the French beat you; and Duke 
At Turin, where you beat the French; King late 
Of Savoy, Piedmont, Montferrat, Sardinia, 
— Now, "any Uttle place's Count" — 

Vic. Proceed ! 

D'O. Breaker of vows to God, who crowned you first; 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 131 

Breaker of vows to man, who kept you since; 

Most profligate to me who outraged God 

And man to serve you, and am made pay crimes 

I was but privy to, by passing thus 

To your imbecile son — who, well you know, 

Must — (when the people here, and nations there. 

Clamor for you the main delinquent, slipped 

From King to — " Count of any little place) ** 

Must needs surrender me, all in his reach, — 

I, sir, forgive you : for I see the end — 

See you on your return — (you will return) — 

To him you trust, a moment . . . 

Vic. Trust him ? How ? 

My poor man, merely a prime-minister. 
Make me know where my trust errs! 

D'O. In his fear. 

His love, his — but discover for yourself 
What you are weakest, trusting in! 

Vic. Aha, 

D'Ormea, not a shrewder scheme than this 
In your repertory ? You know old Victor — 
Vain, choleric, inconstant, rash — (I've heard 
Talkers who little thought the King so close) — 
Fehcitous now, were 't not, to provoke him 
To clean forget, one minute afterward. 
His solemn act, and call the nobles back 
And pray them give again the very power 
He has abjured ? — for the dear sake of what ? 
Vengeance on you, D'Ormea! No: such am I, 
Count Tende or Count anything you please, 
— Only, the same that did the things you say. 
And, among other things you say not, used 
Your finest fibre, meanest muscle, — you 
I used, and now, since you will have it so. 



132 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Leave to your fate — mere lumber in the midst, 
You and your works. Why, what on earth beside 
Are you made for, you sort of ministers ? 

D'O. Not left, though, to my fate! Your witless son 
Has more wit than to load himself with lumber: 
He foils you that way, and I follow you. 

Vic. Stay with my son — protect the weaker side! 

D'O. Ay, to be tossed the people like a rag. 
And flung by them for Spain and Austria's sport. 
Abolishing the record of your part 
In all this perfidy! 

Vic. Prevent, beside. 

My own return! 

D'O. That's half prevented now! 

'Twill go hard but you find a wondrous charm 
In exile, to discredit me. The Alps, 
Silk-mills to watch, vines asking vigilance — 
Hounds open for the stag, your hawk's a-wing — 
Brave days that wait the Louis of the South, 
Italy's Janus! 

Vic. So, the lawyer's clerk 

Won't tell me that I shall repent! 

D'O. You give me 

Full leave to ask if you repent ? 

Vic. Whene'er 

Sufficient time's elapsed for that, you judge! 

[Shouts inside, "King Charles!'* 

D''0. Do you repent ? 

Vic. [After a slight pause.] . . . I've kept them waiting? 
Yes! 
Come in, complete the Abdication, sir! [They go out. 
(Enter Polyxena.) 

Pol. A shout! The sycophants are free of Charles! 
Oh, is not this like Italy ? No fruit 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 133 

Of his or my distempered fancy, this, 

But just an ordinary fact! Beside, 

Here they've set forms for such proceedings; Victor 

Imprisoned his own mother: he should know, 

If any, how a son's to be deprived 

Of a son's right. Our duty's palpable. 

Ne'er was my husband for the wily king 

And the unworthy subjects: be it so! 

Come you safe out of them, my Charles! Our life 

Grows not the broad and dazzling life, I dreamed 

Might prove your lot; for strength was shut in you 

None guessed but I — strength which, untrammelled once. 

Had little shamed your vaunted ancestry — 

Patience and self-devotion, fortitude, 

Simplicity and utter truthfulness 

— All which, they shout to lose! 

So, now my work 
Begins — to save him from regret. Save Charles 
Regret ? — the noble nature! He's not made 
Like these Italians: 'tis a German soul. 

(Charles enters crowned.) 
Oh, where 's the King's heir? Gone: — the Crown-prince? 

Gone : — 
Where's Savoy ? Gone! — Sardinia? Gone! But Charles 
Is left! And when my Rhine-land bowers arrive, 
If he looked almost handsome yester-twilight 
As his gray eyes seemed widening into black 
Because I praised him, then how will he look? 
Farewell, you stripped and whited mulberry-trees 
Bound each to each by lazy ropes of vine! 
Now I'll teach you my language: I'm not forced 
To speak Italian now, Charles ? 
[She sees the crown.] What is this ? 

Answer me — who has done this ? Answer ! 



134 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Cha. He! 

I am King now. 

Pol. Oh worst, worst, worst of all! 

Tell me! What, Victor? He has made you King? 
What's he then ? What's to follow this ? You, King ? 

Cha. Have I done wrong? Yes, for you were not by! 

Pol. Tell me from first to last. 

Cha. Hush — a new world 

Brightens before me; he is moved away 
— The dark form that eclipsed it, he subsides 
Into a shape supporting me hke you. 
And I, alone, tend upward, more and more 
Tend upward: I am grown Sardinia's King. 

Pol. Now stop: was not this Victor, Duke of Savoy 
At ten years old ? 

Cha. He was. 

Pol. And the Duke spent. 

Since then, just four-and-fifty years in toil 
To be — what ? 

Cha. King. 

Pol. Then why unking himself ? 

Cha. Those years are cause enough. 

Pol. The only cause? 

Cha. Some new perplexities. 

Pol. Which you can solve 

Although he cannot ? 

Cha. He assures me so. 

Pol. And this he means shall last — how long ? 

Cha. How long? 

Think you I fear the perils I confront ? 
He's praising me before the people's face — 
My people! 

Pol Then he's changed — grown kind, the King ? 

Where can the trap be ? 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 135 

Cha. Heart and soul I pledge! 

My father, could I guard the crown you gained, 
Transmit as I received it, — all good else 
Would I surrender! 

Pol. Ah, it opens then 

Before you, all you dreaded formerly ? 
You are rejoiced to be a king, my Charles ? 

Cha. So much to dare ? The better, — much to dread ? 
The better. I'll adventure though alone. 
Triumph or die, there's Victor still to witness 
Who dies or triumphs — either way, alone! 

Pol. Once, I had found my share in triumph, Charles, 
Or death. 

Cha. But you are I! But you I call 
To take. Heaven's proxy, vows I tendered Heaven 
A moment since. I will deserve the crown! 

Pol. You will. [Aside.] No doubt it were a glorious 
thing 
For any people, if a heart like his 
Ruled over it. I would I saw the trap. 

{Enter Victor.) 
'Tis he must show me. 

Vic. So, the mask falls off 

An old man's foolish love at last. Spare thanks! 
I know you, and Polyxena I know. 
Here's Charles — I am his guest now — does he bid me 
Be seated ? And my light-haired blue-eyed child 
Must not forget the old man far away 
At Chambery, who dozes while she reigns. 

Pol. Most grateful shall we now be, talking least 
Of gratitude — indeed of anything 
That hinders what yourself must need to say 
To Charles. 

Cha. Pray speak, sir! 



136 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Vic. 'Faith, not much to say: 

Only what shows itself, you once i' the point 
Of sight. You're now the King: you'll comprehend 
Much you may oft have wondered at — the shifts. 
Dissimulation, wihness I showed. 

For what's our post ? Here's Savoy and here's Piedmont, 
Here's Montferrat — a breadth here, a space there — 
To o'er-sweep all these, what's one weapon worth ? 
I often think of how they fought in Greece 
(Or Rome, which was it? You're the scholar, Charles!) 
You made a front-thrust ? But if your shield too ^ 

Were not adroitly planted, some shrewd knave 
Reached you behind; and him foiled, straight if thong 
And handle of that shield were not cast loose. 
And you enabled to outstrip the wind. 
Fresh foes assailed you, either side; 'scape these, 
And reach your place of refuge — e'en then, odds 
If the gate opened unless breath enough 
Were left in you to make its lord a speech. 
Oh, you will see! 

Cha. No: straight on shall I go, 

Truth helping; win with it or die with it. 

Vic. 'Faith, Charles, you're not made Europe's fighting- 
man! 
The barrier-guarder, if you please. You clutch 
Hold and consolidate, with envious France 
This side, with Austria that, the territory 
I held — ay, and will hold . . . which you shall hold 
Despite the couple! But I've surely earned 
Exemption from these weary politics, 
— The privilege to prattle with my son 
And daughter here, though Europe wait the while. 

Pol. Nay, sir, — at Chambery, away forever, 
As soon you will be, 'tis farewell we bid you: 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 137 

Turn these few fleeting moments to account! 
'Tis just as though it were a death. 

Vic. Indeed! 

Pol. [Aside.] Is the trap there? 

Cha. Ay, call this parting — death! 

The sacreder your memory becomes. 
If I misrule Sardinia, how bring back 
My father ? 

Vic. I mean . . . 

Pol. [Who watches Victor narrowly this while.] Your 
father does not mean 
You should be ruling for your father's sake: 
It is your people must concern you wholly 
Instead of him. You mean this, sir ? (He drops 
My hand!) 

Cha. That people is now part of me. 

Vic. About the people! I took certain measures 
Some short time since . . . Oh, I know well, you know 
But little of my measures! These affect 
The nobles; we've resumed some grants, imposed 
A tax or two: prepare yourself, in short. 
For clamor on that score. Mark me: you yield 
No jot of aught entrusted you! 

Pol. No jot 

You yield! 

Cha. My father, when I took the oath. 

Although my eye might stray in search of yours, 
I heard it, understood it, promised God 
What you require. Till from this eminence 
He move me, here I keep, nor shall concede 
The meanest of my rights. 

Vic. [Aside.] The boy's a fool! 

— Or rather, I'm a fool: for, what's wrong here? 
To-day the sweets of reigning: let to-morrow 



138 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Be ready with its bitters. 

(Enter D'Ormea.) 
There's beside 
Somewhat to press upon your notice first. 

Cha. Then why delay it for an instant, sir ? 
That Spanish claim perchance? And, now you speak, 
— This morning, my opinion was mature. 
Which, boy-like, I was bashful in producing 
To one I ne'er am like to fear in future! 
My thought is formed upon that Spanish claim. 

Vic. Betimes indeed. Not now, Charles! You require 
A host of papers on it. 

D'O. [Coming forward.] Here they are. 
[To Cha.] I, Sir, was minister and much beside 
Of the late monarch; to say little, him 
I served: on you I have, to say e'en less. 
No claim. This case contains those papers: with them 
I tender you my office. 

Vic. [Hastily.] Keep him, Charles! 
There's reason for it — many reasons : you 
Distrust him, nor are so far wrong there, — but 
He's mixed up in this matter — he'll desire 
To quit you, for occasions known to me: 
Do not accept those reasons: have him stay! 

Pol. [Aside.] His minister thrust on us! 

Cha. [ToD'O.] Sir, believe, 

In justice to myself, you do not need 
E'en this commending: howsoe'er might seem 
My feelings toward you, as a private man. 
They quit me in the vast and untried field 
Of action. Though I shall myself (as late 
In your own hearing I engaged to do) 
Preside o'er my Sardinia, yet your help 
Is necessary. Think the past forgotten 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 139 

And serve me now! 

D'O. I did not offer you 

My service — would that I could serve you, sir! 
As for the Spanish matter . . . 

Vic. But dispatch 

At least the dead, in my good daughter's phrase. 
Before the living! Help to house me safe 
Ere with D'Ormea you set the world agape! 
Here is a paper — will you overlook 
What I propose reserving for my needs ? 
I get as far from you as possible: 
Here's what I reckon my expenditure. 

Cha. [Reading.] A miserable fifty thousand crowns! 

Vic. Oh, quite enough for country gentlemen! 
Beside, the exchequer happens . . . but find out 
All that, yourself! 

Cha. [Still reading.] "Count Tende" — what means this? 

Vic. Me: you were but an infant when I burst 
Through the defile of Tende upon France. 
Had only my allies kept true to me! 
No matter. Tende 's, then, a name I take 
Just as . . . 

D'O. — The Marchioness Sebastian takes 
The name of Spigno. 

Cha. How, sir? 

Vic. [To D'O.] Fool! All that 

Was for my own detailing. [To Cha.] That anon! 

Cha. [To jD'O.] Explain what you have said, sir! 

D'O. I supposed 

The marriage of the King to her I named. 
Profoundly kept a secret these few weeks. 
Was not to be one, now he's Count. 

Pol. [Aside.] With us 

The minister — with him the mistress! 



140 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Cha. [To Vic] No — 

Tell me you have not taken her — that woman — 
To live with, past recall! 

Vic. And where 's the crime . . . 

Pol. [To Cha.] True, sir, this is a matter past recall 
And past your cognizance. A day before, 
And you had been compelled to note this, now: — 
Why note it? The King saved his House from shame: 
What the Count did, is no concern of yours. 

Cha. [After a pause.] The Spanish claim, D'Ormea! 

Vic. Why, my son, 

I took some ill-advised . . . one's age, in fact, 
Spoils everything: though I was overreached, 
A younger brain, we'll trust, may extricate 
Sardinia readily. To-morrow, D'Ormea, 
Inform the King! 

D'O. [Without regarding Victor, and leisurely.] 

Thus stands the case with Spain: 
When first the Infant Carlos claimed his proper 
Succession to the throne of Tuscany . . . 

Vic. I tell you, that stands over! Let that rest! 
There is the policy! 

Cha. [To D'O.] Thus must I know. 
And more, — too much : the remedy ? 

D'O. Of course! 

No glimpse of one. 

Vic. No remedy at all! 

It makes the remedy itself — time makes it. 

D'O. [To Cha.] But if . . . 

Vic. [Still more hastily.] In fine, I shall take care of that: 
And, with another project that I have . . . 

D'O. [Turning on him.] Oh, since Count Tende means 
to take again 
King Victor's crown ! — 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 141 

Pol. [Throwing herself at Victor's feet.] 

E'en now retake it, sir! 
Oh, speak! We are your subjects both, once more! 
Say it — a word effects it! You meant not, 
Nor do mean now, to take it: but you must! 
'Tis in you — in your nature — and the shame's 
Not half the shame 'twould grow to afterwards! 

Cha. Polyxena ! 

Pol. A word recalls the knights — 

Say it! — What's promising and what's the past? 
Say you are still King Victor! 

D'O. Better say 

The Count repents, in brief! 

[Victor rises. 

Cha. With such a crime 

I have not charged you, sir! 

Pol. Charles turns from me! 

(Enter D'Ormea and Victor, with Guards.) 
Vic. At last I speak; but once — that once, to you! 

'Tis you I ask, not these your varletry. 

Who's King of us? 

Cha. [From his seat.] Count Tende . . . 

Vic. What your spies 

Assert I ponder in my soul, I say — 

Here to your face, amid your guards! I choose 

To take again the crown whose shadow I gave — 

For still its potency surrounds the weak 

White locks their felon hands have discomposed. 

Or I'll not ask who's King, but simply, who 

Withholds the crown I claim ? Deliver it! 

I have no friend in the wide world: nor France 

Nor England cares for me: you see the sum 

Of what I can avail. Deliver it! 



142 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Cha. Take it, my father! 

And now say in turn. 
Was it done well, my father — sure not well, 
To try me thus! I might have seen much cause 
For keeping it — - too easily seen cause! 
But, from that moment, e*en more woefully 
My hfe had pined away, than pine it will. 
Already you have much to answer for. 
My life to pine is nothing, — her sunk eyes 
Were happy once! No doubt, my people think 
I am their King still . . . but I cannot strive! 
Take it! 

Vic. [One hand on the crown Charles offers y the other on 
his neck.] So few years give it quietly. 
My son! It will drop from me. See you not? 
A crown *s unlike a sword to give away — 
That, let a strong hand to a weak hand give! 
But crowns should slip from palsied brows to heads 
Young as this head: yet mine is weak enough. 
E'en weaker than I knew. I seek for phrases 
To vindicate my right. 'Tis of a piece! 
All is alike gone by with me — who beat 
Once D'Orleans in his lines — his very lines! 
To have been Eugene's comrade, Louis's rival. 
And now . . . 

Cha. [Putting the crown on him, to the rest.] The King 
speaks, yet none kneels, I think! 

Vic. I am then King! As I became a King 
Despite the nations, kept myself a King, 
So I die King, with Kingship dying too 
Around me! I have lasted Europe's time! 
What wants my story of completion ? Where 
Must needs the damning break show ? Who mistrusts 
My children here — tell they of any break 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 143 

'Twixt my day's sunrise and its fiery fall ? 
And who were by me when I died but they ? 
D'Ormea there! 

Cha. What means he ? 

Vic. Ever there! 

Charles — how to save your story! Mine must go! 
Say — say that you refused the crown to me! 
Charles, yours shall be my story! You immured 
Me, say, at Rivoli. A single year 
I spend without a sight of you, then die. 
That will serve every purpose — tell that tale 
The world! 

Cha. Mistrust me ? Help ! 

Vic. Past help, past reach! 

'Tis in the heart — you cannot reach the heart : 
This broke mine, that I did believe, you, Charles, 
Would have denied me and disgraced me. 

Pol. Charles 

Has never ceased to be your subject, sir! 
He reigned at first through setting up yourself 
As pattern: if he e'er seemed harsh to you, 
'Twas from a too intense appreciation 
Of your own character : he acted you — 
N'er for an instant did I think it real, 
Nor look for any other than this end. 
I hold him worlds the worse on that account; 
But so it was. 

Cha. [To Pol.] I love you now indeed! 
\To Vic] You never knew me! 

Vic. Hardly till this moment. 

When I seem learning many other things 
Because the time for using them is past. 
It 'twere to do again! That's idly wished. 
Truthfulness might prove policy as good 



144 BROWNING'S ITALY 

As guile. Is this my daughter's forehead? Yes: 
I've made it fitter now to be a queen's 
Than formerly: I've ploughed the deep lines there 
Which keep too well a crown from slipping off. 
No matter. Guile has made me King again. 
Louis — Hwas in King Victor's time: — long since. 
When Louis reigned and, also, Victor reigned. 
How the world talks already of us two! 
God of eclipse and each discolored star. 
Why do I hnger then ? 

Ha! Where lurks he ? 
D'Ormea! Nearer to your King! Now stand! 

[Collecting his strength as D'Ormea approaches. 
You lied, D'Ormea! I do not repent. [Dies. 

This episode has been called by Voltaire 
a ** terrible event without consequences" in 
the history of Europe. That it should have 
had so little national or international mean- 
ing is all the more remarkable when we con- 
sider how important a part Piedmont and the 
Kingdom of Sardinia, formerly the Duchy 
of Savoy, played in Italian History. 

This Duchy comes prominently into notice 
the latter part of the sixteenth century. At 
that time it included a good deal of Piedmont 
and part of what is now France and Switzer- 
land. Unfortunately it was the fighting 
ground of France, Spain and Austria, or 
perhaps this was fortunate, for its Dukes 
were so attuned to war that they gradually. 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 145 

though losing their French and Swiss prov- 
inces, built up a province that became the 
head and front of the Kingdom of Sardinia. 
More important still is the fact that the 
people of Piedmont themselves became a 
nation of soldiers and when tlie rest of the 
Italian provinces grew more and more in- 
capable of bearing arms, Piedmont led the 
van in the final fierce struggle for Italian 
Independence. Cavour and Victor Emman- 
uel II are the great names in Piedmontese 
history: without them, one may indeed won- 
der if Italian liberty would ever have been 
won. At the call of Cavour, Turin took up 
the Carbonari's cry for a constitution. Ac- 
cording to Cavour there was but one possible 
course — war with Austria, and Piedmont felt 
that the time had at last come for her to 
uplift Italy and fight her country's battles. 
The time was not yet, however, though as 
Sedgwick points out, '*In Piedmont alone 
was there light ahead." Victor Emmanuel 
was to prove a rock of defense. He had 
all the good qualities of his race; he was a 
brave soldier and of unimpeachable integrity, 
a better illustration of which could not be 
given than in his action after the defeat of 
Novara (1849), when pressure was brought 
to bear upon him to make him return to the 



146 BROWNING'S ITALY 

autocratic system. ''Austria," says Sedgwick, 
"offered him easier terms in this event, but 
he had been brought up with the old ideas 
of the royal position, still he was statesman 
enough to perceive that if Piedmont and the 
house of Savoy were to lead in the movement 
of Italian Independence, they must win the 
confidence of the liberals; and he had sworn 
to maintain the Constitution. He was always 
a man of his word, whatever policy might 
advise, and answered that he should be loyal 
to the Constitution." 

In the final struggle in the North, Piedmont 
was the center around w^hich the liberals 
rallied, but though many states wished to 
join themselves to Piedmont, some w^anted 
to preserve their old historic boundaries and 
local government. 

It was finally, upon the motion of Cavour, 
settled by an appeal to the w^ill of the people, 
who were asked to vote not upon fusion or 
annexation, but upon the union of the Italian 
people under the constitutional government 
of Victor Emmanuel II. France would not 
give her consent unless Savoy and Nice were 
ceded. The King did not enjoy having to 
cede Savoy, the "cradle of his race," but he 
sunk his personal feeling, and Parma, 
Modena, Tuscany and the Romagna were 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 147 

united with the Kingdom of Sardinia under 
the name of the Kingdom of Italy, April 15, 
1860. 

There is a significant glimpse in "Pippa 
Passes" into this agonizing chapter of Italian 
History in the scene between Luigi and 
his mother, led up to in a striking manner 
by the talk of the police preceding the 
scene. 

What Italy suffered under the Austrian 
yoke, and the brave struggles she made to 
throw it off, finally winning her freedom in 
1860, as we have already seen, is history 
within the memory of many to-day, but how 
important a part the Carbonari took in the 
earlier phases of this struggle for freedom is 
sometimes overlooked and sometimes for- 
gotten. 

The secret society of the Carbonari or 
Charcoal-makers was organized about 1808 
and first attracted attention in Naples, where 
the strength of the Austrians was most 
felt. 

It will be remembered that Austrian domi- 
nation preceded and followed the Napoleonic 
regime. At the departure of Napoleon, all 
the little kinglets came back to their petty 
thrones. The Congress of Vienna gave 
Venice to Austria, Genoa to Piedmont, and 



148 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Parma to Marie Louise, the Austrian wife of 
Napoleon, for her life. Ferdinand I of the 
Two Sicilies restored the old regime, swept 
away the autonomy of Sicily which had had 
a separate parliament for hundreds of years, 
and since 1812 a constitution also, and 
humbly followed every hint from Austria. 
The will of Austria was supreme from Naples 
to Venice. 

Spain was responsible for setting ablaze 
the hidden discontent in Italy. The rebellion 
there had ended in their obtaining a con- 
stitution. A company of soldiers bent upon 
obtaining a similar constitution for Italy 
rebelled. They were led by two young lieu- 
tenants. Many more joined them and a 
general of the same mind took command. 
The army, refusing to fight the rebels, the 
King was frightened into promising to grant 
them all their demands, namely, a con- 
stitution, a parliament, a free press, trials 
according to law. But the Austrians sent 
an overwhelming army which made short 
work of these lovers of liberty. The con- 
stitution, parliament, free press, became as 
nought. But the Carbonari were not to be 
suppressed. They grew and flourished in 
spite of the fact that a vigilant government 
was always on the lookout for conspirators 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 149 

whom they, without ceremony, clapped into 
prison. Prince Canossa, head of the Naples 
police, founded a counter secret society 
which w^as called the ** Tinkers," and which 
also had its secret rites and signs. 

The duties of the individual Carbonaro 
were such that the citizens of any state might 
do w^ell to cultivate their tenets. ''To render 
to the Almighty the worship due to him; to 
serve the fatherland with zeal; to reverence 
religion and laws; to fulfil the obligations of 
nature and friendship; to be faithful to 
promises; to observe silence, discretion and 
charity; to cause harmony and good morals 
to prevail; to conquer the passions and 
submit the will ; and to abhor the seven deadly 
sins. The society further was to disseminate 
instruction; to unite the different classes of 
society under the bond of love; to impress a 
national character on the people and to in- 
terest them in the preservation and defense 
of the fatherland and of religion; to destroy, 
by moral culture, the source of crimes, due 
to the general depravity of mankind; to pro- 
tect the weak and to raise up the unfortu- 
nate." 

It is needless to say they did not accom- 
plish the complete regeneration of society 
that such tenets would lead one to expect. 



150 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Their aim was above all political and the 
striking down of tyrants in cold blood became 
a necessary part of the practice of a society 
that was subjected to constant and most 
cruel persecution. Silvio Pellico, whom 
Luigi's mother calls a "writer for effect," 
tells many grewsome stories in his book "Le 
Mie Prigioni" (My Prisons). He and his 
friend Maronelli were arrested and put in 
prison for ten years. Pellico tells how his 
confrere Maronelli was suffering with a most 
painful tumor on his leg. '* Sometimes to 
make the slightest shift from one position to 
another cost a quarter of an hour of agony. 
In that deplorable condition Maronelli com- 
posed poetry, he sang and talked and did 
everything to deceive me, and hide from me 
a part of his pain. He could not digest or 
sleep; he grew alarmingly thin, and often 
went out of his head ; and yet, in a few minutes 
gathered himself together and cheered me up. 
What he suffered for nine months is inde- 
scribable. Amputation was necessary; but 
first the surgeon had to get permission from 
Vienna. Maronelli uttered no cry at the 
operation and only said, *You have liberated 
me from an enemy and I have no way to 
thank you.' By the window stood a tumbler 
with a rose in it. * Please give me that rose/ 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 151 

he said to me. I handed it to him and he 
gave it to the old surgeon saying, *I have 
nothing else to give you in testimony of my 
gratitude.' The surgeon took the rose and 
burst into tears. Such was the character 
of the men who plotted for the freedom of 
Italy." 

Carbonarism was really a tentative Repub- 
lic amid an autocracy which it intended to 
abolish, and the forms of its government were 
Republican, but there was also mixed up with 
their organization an immense deal of sym- 
bolism, much after the manner of the order 
of Free Masons, from whom they indeed 
borrowed some of their rites. Mythical 
stories arose of its origin. Black, red, 
and blue were their colors, to each of 
which were attached symbolic meanings. 
Black signified first charcoal, and then faith; 
red was fire and charity; blue was smoke and 
hope. 

In the scene from "Pippa Passes," which 
we give, is brought vividly before the reader 
the intense and reckless patriotism of the 
young Carbonaro, Luigi, and, in Luigi's 
Mother, the conservative element, fearful of 
the dangers of a revolution — an element 
which kept back the progress of liberty for 
many weary years. 



152 BROWNING'S ITALY 

III. EVENING 

Inside the Turret on the Hill above Asolo. Luigi and his 
Mother entering. 

Mother. If there blew wind, you'd hear a long sigh, easing 
The utmost heaviness of music's heart. 

Luigi. Here in the archway? 

Mother. Oh no, no — in farther. 

Where the echo is made, on the ridge. 

Luigi. Here surely, then. 

How plain the tap of my heel as I leaped up! 
Hark — "Lucius Junius!" The very ghost of a voice 
Whose body is caught and kept by . . . what are those ? 
Mere withered wallflowers, waving overhead .'' 
They seem an elvish group with thin bleached hair 
That lean out of their topmost fortress — look 
And listen, mountain men, to what we say. 
Hand under chin of each grave earthy face. 
Up and show faces all of you! — "All of you!" 
That's the king dwarf with the scarlet comb; old Franz, 
Come down and meet your fate ? Hark — " Meet your 
fate!" 

Mother. Let him not meet it, my Luigi — do not 
Go to his City! Putting crime aside, 
Half of these ills of Italy are feigned: 
Your Pellicos and writers for effect. 
Write for effect. 

Luigi. Hush! Say A writes, and B. 

Mother. These A's and B's write for effect, I say. 
Then, evil is in its nature loud, while good 
Is silent; you hear each petty injury. 
None of his virtues; he is old beside. 
Quiet and kind, and densely stupid. Why 
Do A and B not kill him themselves ? 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 153 

Luigi. They teach 

Others to kill him — me — and, if I fail. 
Others to succeed; now, if A tried and failed, 
I could not teach that: mine's the lesser task. 
Mother, they visit night by night . . . 

Mother. — You, Luigi ? 

Ah, will you let me tell you what you are ? 

Luigi. Why not ? Oh, the one thing you fear to hint. 
You may assure yourseK I say and say 
Ever to myself! At times — nay, even as now 
We sit — I think my mind is touched, suspect 
All is not sound: but is not knowing that, 
W^hat constitutes one sane or otherwise? 
I know I am thus — so, all is right again. 
I laugh at myseK as through the town I walk. 
And see men merry as if no Italy 
Were suffering; then I ponder — "I am rich, 
Young, healthy; why should this fact trouble me. 
More than it troubles these?" But it does trouble. 
No, trouble's a bad word: for as I walk 
There's springing and melody and giddiness, 
And old quaint turns and passages of my youth. 
Dreams long forgotten, little in themselves. 
Return to me — whatever may amuse me : 
And earth seems in a truce with me, and heaven 
Accords with me, all things suspend their strife. 
The very cicala laughs "There goes he, and there! 
Feast him, the time is short; he is on his way 
For the world's sake: feast him this once, our friend!" 
And in return for all this, I can trip 
Cheerfully up the scaffold-steps. I go 
This evening, mother! 

Mother. But mistrust yourself — 

Mistrust the judgment you pronounce on him! 



154 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Luigi. Oh, there I feel — am sure that I am right! 

Mother. Mistrust your judgment then, of the mere means 
To this wild enterprise : say, you are right, — 
How should one in your state e'er bring to pass 
What would require a cool head, a cool heart, 
And a calm hand ? You never will escape. 

Luigi. Escape ? To even wish that, would spoil all. 
The dying is best part of it. Too much 
Have I enjoyed these fifteen years of mine. 
To leave myself excuse for longer life: 
Was not hfe pressed down, running o'er with joy. 
That I might finish with it ere my fellows 
Who, spareher feasted, make a longer stay ? 
I was put at the board -head, helped to all 
At first; I rise up happy and content. 
God must be glad one loves his world so much. 
I can give news of earth to all the dead 
Who ask me: — last year's sunsets, and great stars 
Which had a right to come first and see ebb 
The crimson wave that drifts the sun away — 
Those crescent moons with notched and burning rims 
That strengthened into sharp fire, and there stood. 
Impatient of the azure — and that day 
In March, a double rainbow stopped the storm — 
May's warm slow yellow moonlit summer nights — 
Gone are they, but I have them in my soul! 

Mother. (He will not go!) 

Luigi. You smile at me ? 'Tis true, — 

Voluptuousness, grotesqueness, ghastliness, 
Environ my devotedness as quaintly 
As round about some antique altar wreathe 
The rose festoons, goats' horns, and oxen's skulls. 

Mother. See now: you reach the city, you must cross 
His threshold — how ? 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 155 

Luigi. Oh, that's if we conspired! 

Then would come pains in plenty, as you guess — 
But guess not how the qualities most fit 
For such an oflice, qualities I have. 
Would little stead me, otherwise employed, 
Yet prove of rarest merit only here. 
Every one knows for what his excellence 
Will serve, but no one ever will consider 
For what his worst defect might serve: and yet 
Have you not seen me range our coppice yonder 
In search of a distorted ash ? — I find 
The wry spoilt branch a natural perfect bow. 
Fancy the thrice-sage, thrice-precautioned man 
Arriving at the palace on my errand! 
No, no! I have a handsome dress packed up — 
White satin here, to set off my black hair; 
In I shall march — for you may watch your life out 
Behind thick walls, make friends there to betray you; 
More than one man spoils everything. March straight — 
Only, no clumsy knife to fumble for. 
Take the great gate, and walk (not saunter) on 
Through guards and guards — I have rehearsed it all 
Inside the turret here a hundred times. 
Don't ask the way of whom you meet, observe! 
But where they cluster thickliest is the door 
Of doors; they'll let you pass — they'll never blab 
Each to the other, he knows not the favorite. 
Whence he is bound and what's his business now. 
Walk in — straight up to him; you have no knife: 
Be prompt, how should he scream ? Then, out with you! 
Italy, Italy, my Italy! 

You're free, you're free! Oh mother, I could dream 
They got about me — Andrea from his exile, 
Pier from his dungeon, Gualtier from his grave! 



156 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Mother. Well, you shall go. Yet seems this patriotism 
The easiest virtue for a selfish man 
To acquire: he loves himseK — and next, the world — 
If he must love beyond, — but naught between: 
As a short-sighted man sees naught midway 
His body and the sun above. But you 
Are my adored Luigi, ever obedient 
To my least wish, and running o'er with love: 
I could not call you cruel or unkind. 
Once more, your ground for killing him! — then go! 

Luigi. Now do you try me, or make sport of me ? 
How first the Austrians got these provinces . . . 
(If that is all, I'll satisfy you soon) 
— Never by conquest but by cunning, for 
That treaty whereby . . . 

Mother. Well.? 

Luigi. (Sure, he's arrived. 

The tell-tale cuckoo: spring's his confidant. 
And he lets out her April purposes!) 
Or . . . better go at once to modern time. 
He has . . . they have ... in fact, I understand 
But can't restate the matter; that's my boast: 
Others could reason it out to you, and prove 
Things they have made me feel. 

Mother. Why go to-night ? 

Morn's for adventure. Jupiter is now 
A morning-star. I cannot hear you, Luigi! 

Luigi. "I am the bright and morning-star," saith 
God — 
And, "to such an one I give the morning-star." 
The gift of the morning-star! Have I God's gift 
Of the morning-star ? 

Mother. Chiara will love to see 

That Jupiter an evening-star next June. 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 157 

Luigi. True, mother. Well for those who live through 
June! 
Great noontides, thunder-storms, all glaring pomps 
That triumph at the heels of June the god 
Leading his revel through our leafy world. 
Yes, Chiara will be here. 

Mother. In June: remember, 

Yourself appointed that month for her coming. 

Luigi. Was that low noise the echo? 

Mother. The night-wind. 

She must be grown — with her blue eyes upturned 
As if life were one long and sweet surprise: 
In June she comes. 

Luigi. We were to see together 

The Titian at Treviso. There, again! 
\From without is heard the voice of Pippa, singing — 

A king lived long ago. 

In the morning of the world. 

When earth was nigher heaven than now; 

And the king^s locks curled. 

Disparting o^er a forehead full 

As the milk-white space Hivixt horn and horn 

Of some sacrificial hull — 

Only calm as a babe new-born: 

For he was got to a sleepy mood. 

So safe from all decrepitude. 

Age with its bane, so sure gone by, 

(The gods so loved him while he dreamed) 

That, having lived thus long, there seemed 

No need the king should ever die. 

Luigi. No need that sort of king should ever die! 

Amxmg the rocks his city was: 
Before his palace, in the sun. 



158 BROWNING'S ITALY 

He sat to see his people pass^ 

And judge them every one 

From, its threshold of smooth stone. 

They haled him many a valley-thief 

Caught in the sheep-pens, robber-chief 

Swarthy and shameless, beggar-cheat. 

Spy-prowler, or rough pirate found 

On the sea-sand left aground; 

And sometimes clung about his feet. 

With bleeding lip and burning cheek, 

A woman, bitterest wrong to speak 

Of one with sullen thickset brows; 

And sometimes from the prison-house 

The angry priests a pale wretch brought. 

Who through some chink had pushed and pressed 

On knees and elbows, belly and breast. 

Worm-like into the temple, — caught 

He was by the very god. 

Who ever in the darkness strode 

Backward and forward, keeping watch 

O^er his brazen bowls, such rogues to catch! 

These, all and every one. 

The king judged, sitting in the sun. 

^ Luigi. That king should still judge sitting in the sun! 

His councillors, on left and right. 
Looked anxious up, — but no surprise 
Disturbed the king*s old smiling eyes 
Where the very blue had turned to white. 
'Tis said, a Python scared one day 
The breathless city, till he came. 
With forky tongue and eyes on flame. 
Where the old king sat to judge alway; 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 159 

But when he saw the sweepy hair 

Girt with a crown of berries rare 

Which the god will hardly give to wear 

To the maiden who singeth, dancing bare 

In the altar-smoke by the pine-torch lights. 

At his wondrous forest rites, — 

Seeing this, he did not dare 

Approach that threshold in the sun. 

Assault the old king smiling there. 

Such grace had kings when the world begun! 

[PipPA passes. 
Luigi. And such grace have they, now that the world 

ends! 
The Python at the city, on the throne, 
And brave men, God would crown for slaying him. 
Lurk in by-corners lest they fall his prey. 
Are crowns yet to be won in this late time. 
Which weakness makes me hesitate to reach ? 
'Tis God's voice calls: how could I stay? Farewell! 

Browning gives another picture of this 
period in his poem "The ItaHan in England." 
The speaker evidently belonged to the Car- 
bonari in the early days, before the revolu- 
tion was successful, and has taken refuge in 
England to escape Austrian persecution. He 
gives an account of a typical experience that 
had befallen him. It reveals how the luke- 
warm attitude of the Italians themselves, and 
their backsliding into the pay of Austria kept 
back the progress of Italian independence; 
and how true patriots could feel, as expressed 



160 BROWNING'S ITALY 

in his hatred of the distinguished Austrian 
diplomatist, Metternich, and above all how 
they could act, the supreme illustration of 
this being shown in the help the beautiful 
Italian girl gave him. The poem tells its own 
story far better than any description of it can 
do, and completes in a brilliant manner the 
series of historical pictures that Browning 
has given us, touching almost every great 
problem in Italian History. 

THE ITALIAN IN ENGLAND 

That second time they hunted me 

From hill to plain, from shore to sea. 

And Austria, hounding far and wide 

Her blood-hounds through the country-side. 

Breathed hot and instant on my trace, — 

I made six days a hiding-place 

Of that dry green old aqueduct 

Where I and Charles, when boys, have plucked 

The fire-flies from the roof above. 

Bright creeping through the moss they love: 

— How long it seems since Charles was lost! 

Six days the soldiers crossed and crossed 

The country in my very sight: 

And when that peril ceased at night. 

The sky broke out in red dismay 

With signal fires; well, there I lay 

Close covered o'er in my recess. 

Up to the neck in ferns and cress. 

Thinking on Metternich our friend. 

And Charles's miserable end. 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 161 

And much beside, two days; the third, 
Hunger o'ercame me when I heard 
The peasants from the village go 
To work among the maize; you know, 
With us in Lombardy, they bring 
Provisions packed on mules, a string 
With little bells that cheer their task. 
And casks, and boughs on every cask 
To keep the sun's heat from the wine; 
These I let pass in jinghng hne, 
And, close on them, dear noisy crew, 
The peasants from the village, too; 
For at the very rear would troop 
Their wives and sisters in a group 
To help, I know. When these had passed, 
I threw my glove to strike the last. 
Taking the chance: she did not start, 
Much less cry out, but stooped apart, 
One instant rapidly glanced round. 
And saw me beckon from the ground. 
A wild bush grows and hides my crypt; 
She picked my glove up while she stripped 
A branch off, then rejoined the rest 
With that; my glove lay in her breast. 
Then I drew breath: they disappeared: 
It was for Italy I feared. 

An hour, and she returned alone 
Exactly where my glove was thrown. 
Meanwhile came many thoughts; on me 
Rested the hopes of Italy. 
I had devised a certain tale 
W^hich, when 'twas told her, could not fail 
Persuade a peasant of its truth; 



162 BROWNING'S ITALY 

I meant to call a freak of youth 

This hiding, and give hopes of pay, 

And no temptation to betray. 

But when I saw that woman's face. 

Its calm simplicity of grace. 

Our Italy's own attitude 

In which she walked thus far, and stood. 

Planting each naked foot so firm, 

To crush the snake and spare the worm — 

At first sight of her eyes, I said, 

"I am that man upon whose head 

They fix the price, because I hate 

The Austrians over us: the State 

Will give you gold — oh, gold so much! — 

If you betray me to their clutch. 

And be your death, for aught I know. 

If once they find you saved their foe. 

Now, you must bring me food and drink. 

And also paper, pen and ink. 

And carry safe what I shall write 

To Padua, which you'll reach at night 

Before the duomo shuts; go in. 

And wait till Tenebrai begin; 

Walk to the third confessional. 

Between the pillar and the wall. 

And kneeling whisper. Whence comes peace ? 

Say it a second time, then cease; 

And if the voice inside returns, 

From Christ and Freedom; what concerns 

The cause of Peace ? — for answer, slip 

My letter where you placed your lip; 

Then come back happy we have done 

Our mother service — I, the son. 

As you the daughter of our land!" 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 163 

Three mornings more, she took her stand 
In the same place, with the same eyes: 
I was no surer of sunrise 
Than of her coming. We conferred 
Of her own prospects, and I heard 
She had a lover — stout and tall, 
She said — then let her eyelids fall, 
"He could do much" — as if some doubt 
Entered her heart, — then, passing out, 
"She could not speak for others, who 
Had other thoughts; herself she knew:'* 
And so she brought me drink and food. 
After four days, the scouts pursued 
Another path; at last arrived 
The help my Paduan friends contrived 
To furnish me: she brought the news. 
For the first time I could not choose 
But kiss her hand, and lay my own 
Upon her head — "This faith was shown 
To Italy, our mother; she 
Uses my hand and blesses thee.'* 
She followed down to the sea-shore; 
I left and never saw her more. 

How very long since I have thought 
Concerning — much less wished for — aught 
Beside the good of Italy, 
For which I live and mean to die! 
I never was in love; and since 
Charles proved false, what shall now convince 
My inmost heart I have a friend ? 
However, if I pleased to spend 
Real wishes on myself — say, three — 
I know at least what one should be. 



164 BROWNING'S ITALY 

I would grasp Metternich until 

I felt his red wet throat distil 

In blood through these two hands. And next, 

— Nor much for that am I perplexed — 
Charles, perjured traitor, for his part. 
Should die slow of a broken heart 
Under his new employers. Last 

— Ah, there, what should I wish ? For fast 
Do I grow old and out of strength. 

If I resolved to seek at length 
My father's house again, how scared 
They all would look, and unprepared! 
My brothers live in Austria's pay 

— Disowned me long ago, men say; 
And all my early mates who used 
To praise me so — perhaps induced 
More than one early step of mine — 
Are turning wise: while some opine 
"Freedome grows license," some suspect 
"Haste breeds delay," and recollect 
They always said, such premature 
Beginnings never could endure! 

So, with a sullen "All's for best," 
The land seems settling to its rest. 
I think then, I should wish to stand 
This evening in that dear, lost land. 
Over the sea the thousand miles. 
And know if yet that woman smiles 
With the calm smile; some little farm 
She lives in there, no doubt: what harm 
If I sat on the door-side bench, 
And, while her spindle made a trench 
Fantastically in the dust, 
Inquired of all her fortunes — just 



GLIMPSES OF POLITICAL LIFE 165 

Her children's ages and their names, 
And what may be the husband's aims 
For each of them. I'd talk this out, 
And sit there, for an hour about, 
Then kiss her hand once more, and lay 
Mine on her head, and go my way. 

So much for idle wishing — how 
It steals the time! To business now. 



Ill 



THE ITALIAN SCHOLAR 

"So let us say — not 'Since we know, we love,' 
But rather 'Since we love, we know enough.'" 

— A Pillar at Sebzevar. 

ALTHOUGH there are but two of 
Browning's poems that touch directly 
the purely scholarly aspects of Italian culture 
in the Renaissance, these two open up for 
our inspection two or three of the most inter- 
esting tendencies that manifested themselves 
during the period, namely, the influence of 
scientific knowledge and the influence of the 
Revival of ancient Greek learning, with all 
that it brought in its train of philosophical 
studies and language studies. 

In "Pietro of Abano," science and the 
philosophical side of Greek learning figure, 
and in ''The Grammarian's Funeral" the 
enthusiasm for language study — particu- 
larly that of Greek is shown. 

Science, especially medical science, was 

166 



THE ITALIAN SCHOLAR 167 

making great strides in the hands of the 
Arabians, who had the beginnings of their 
learning from the Jews and Nestorians, when 
Constantine the Great, influenced by the 
Church, declared the Church the enemy of 
worldly learning. The antagonism thus set 
up between the church and science produced 
some very curious results. The church took 
upon itself to see to the physical as well as 
the spiritual well-being of the people, and in 
consequence hospitals and benevolent organi- 
zations were founded and endowed with land 
and money, but instead of the care of the 
sick being in the hands of regular physicians 
with such education as they had at the time, 
it was in those of unskilled ecclesiastics. The 
outcome was a resort to miracle cures, and for 
succeeding ages there was a gradually in- 
creasing credulity and exercise of imposture 
until at length there was almost universal 
reliance on the quackeries of miracle cure, 
shrine cure, relic cure. Crowds repaired to 
the shrines of saints to be cured. 

But the most curious aspect of this division 
of religion and science was the fact that at 
the same time that religion was developing 
credulity in miracles, science was going in 
the direction of sorcery. This pseudo science 
was *'the glimmering lamp," as Draper says, 



168 BROWNING'S ITALY 

*' which sustained knowledge when it was all 
but ready to die out." He goes on, '*By the 
Arabians it was handed down to us. The 
grotesque forms of some of those who took 
charge of it are not without interest. They 
exhibit a strange mixture of the Neoplatonist, 
the Pantheist, the Mohammedan, the Chris- 
tian. In such untoward times it was per- 
haps needful that the strongest passions of 
men should be excited and science stimu- 
lated by inquiries for methods of turning 
lead into gold, or of prolonging life indefi- 
nitely. We have now to deal with the philos- 
opher's stone, the elixir vitoe, the powder of 
projection, magical mirrors, perpetual lamps, 
the transmutation of metals. In smoky 
caverns under ground where the great work 
is stealthily carried on, the alchemist and his 
familiar are busy with their alembics, cucur- 
bites, and pelicans, maintaining their fires 
for so many years that salamanders are 
asserted to be born in them. Experimental 
science was thus restored." 

There were various channels by which 
this Arabian knowledge reached Italy. The 
Crusaders brought back the knowledge of 
the East, but more important was the estab- 
lishment of the Saracens in Spain. Science 
was cultivated assiduously among them, and 



THE ITALIAN SCHOLAR 169 

from there, their learning spread into Southern 
France, and into Sicily. Frederick II was 
especially friendly to the Saracens, and Arab 
learning flourished in his court in Sicily. 
Among the distinguished savants surround- 
ing him were the two sons of Averrhoes of 
Cordova. Their father was one of the great 
lights of erudition at that period. Among 
other things he was learned in astronomy 
and is said to have been the first to have 
observed a transit of Mercury across the sun. 
He was also a commentator upon the w^orks 
of Plato and Aristotle. He was furthermore 
a total disbeliever in all revelation. 

"Pietro of Abano" may be taken as a 
type of this medieval learning. Pietro lived 
from 1249 to 1315, just at the time when 
Italy's intellectual aspiration was gaining in 
power. He was called Petrus Aponensis, 
Aponon being the name of the famous medi- 
cinal springs of Abano, near Padua (a, with- 
out, and ponos, pain), near which Peter was 
born. According to all accounts he was 
profoundly learned in science and magic. 
He had studied at Paris, at Constantinople 
and in the Orient and was said to keep the 
seven spirits of philosophy, alchemy, astrol- 
ogy, physic, poetry and music in seven crys- 
tal vases tamed to his will. 



170 BROWNING'S ITALY 

It is needless to say that a man of this 
caHber was persecuted by the Church. He 
was accused of being a heretic and an atheist 
by the Inquisition, but escaped his fate of 
burning by his own able defense of himself. 
Accused again later, he died before he was 
convicted, but his body was condemned to 
be burned, and had it not been for the devo- 
tion of a friend the sentence would have 
been carried out. The friend, however, hid 
the body, and it was burned only in eJ05gy. 

He did not, however, wait as long as other 
illustrious men for recognition. The Duke 
of Urbino had his statue put up among other 
statues of distinguished men in Padua, and 
the Senate honored it by placing it upon the 
gate of the Senate-house. Still other honors 
were accorded him, for in 1560 a tablet with 
a Latin epitaph was put up in his memory in 
the Church of St. Augustine. The Rev. 
John Sharpe, who wrote about this poem in 
The London Browning Society Papers, found 
an early inscription in the wall of the vestibule 
of the Sacristy of the Church of the Eremitani 
to this effect: "Petri Aponi (Cineres) Ob. an. 
1315: set. 66." 

Browning brings into connection with this 
historic personage, versed in the lore derived 
from the Saracens, a Greek without a name. 



THE ITALIAN SCHOLAR 171 

who is anxious to become as learned as Pietro 
in magic lore. In exchange for his learning, 
the Greek offers Pietro the love he is supposed 
to lack. In reply to his demands, Pietro 
gives him a magic powder. This causes 
him in an instant of time, between the begin- 
ning and ending of Pietro's pronouncing the 
word "Benedicity," to live through all the 
successive stages of the career he would like 
to win by means of Pietro's magic: a man 
of wealth, a statesman, a churchman. As he 
advances by means of the magic powder, 
instead of giving Pietro the love promised, he 
treats him with more and more scorn and 
finally tries to drive him from his presence, 
thus showing what a pretense his ambition 
to rule men for their good had been. 

This legend, as is usually the case with such 
stories, occurs in various forms in the Middle 
Ages, but what we are more concerned with 
now is the glimpse of the Greek character 
and the relation of the Greeks to Italian 
culture which it gives us. 

At this time the Greeks, according to one 
of their own countrymen, Gemistos Plethon, 
were a thoroughly degenerate people. The 
first appearance of Gemistos in Italy was at a 
council held in Florence of the Latin Church 
and the Greek Church, looking toward some 



172 BROWNING'S ITALY 

sort of union between them. At this council 
it was natural that the Greeks should attract 
much attention, as the fervor for Greek 
studies had already taken hold of the Floren- 
tine mind. But on the whole these Greeks 
were not quite what the Florentines expected 
of the descendants of Homer and Plato. 
''While honoring them," says Symonds, "as 
the last scions of the noblest nation of the 
past, as the authentic teachers of Hellenic 
learning and the Masters of the Attic tongue, 
they despised their empty vanity, their facile 
apostasy, their trivial pedantry, their per- 
sonal absurdities." Their erudition finally 
resolved itself into the meager accomplish- 
ment of being able to speak their mother 
tongue, an "emasculated" Greek. There 
was, however, a noble exception among these 
visiting Greeks. Gemistos had all the lore 
that the hungry Florentines craved. "From 
the treasures of a memory stored with Pla- 
tonic, Pythagorean and Alexandrian mysti- 
cism, he poured forth copious streams of 
erudition. The ears of his audience were 
open; their intellects were far from critical. 
They accepted the gold and dross of his dis- 
course alike as purest metal. Hanging upon 
the lips of the eloquent, grave, beautiful old 
man, who knew so much that they desired to 



THE ITALIAN SCHOLAR 173 

learn, they called him Socrates and Plato in 
their ecstacy." 

This delightful old fellow, of whom Symonds 
draws such a charming picture, had a phi- 
losophy that reminds us strongly of the wily 
Greek in this poem, and an opinion of his 
own countrymen's character that chimes in 
well with Browning's portrayal of the Greek. 
He lived in the Peloponnesus, upon the site 
of the ancient Sparta, for the greater part of 
his life. He drew a terrible picture of the 
anarchy and immorality of the decadent 
Hellenic race, and being a learned man and 
a philosopher he concocted a scheme of life 
and religion which was to regenerate not only 
his race but the world. The soul of Plato 
was believed by his disciples to be re-incarnate 
in him, and his followers called him **the 
mystagogue of sublime and celestial dogmas." 
His scheme included metaphysics, a new re- 
ligion, an elaborate psychology, a theory of 
ethics and a theory of political administra- 
tion. It is impossible here to go into its 
recondite ramifications, in which the old 
Greek gods and goddesses and human quali- 
ties seem to masquerade in each other's like- 
nesses. It has been described as a "Sort of 
Neoplatonism — a mystical fusion of Greek 
mythology and Greek logic." The work in 



174 BROWNING'S ITALY 

which he set forth his ideas was called "The 
Laws," the name itself being reminiscent of 
Plato's "Laws." 

Such a plan of ruling men for their good 
might have emanated from Browning's Greek 
if he had been clever enough, and it is more 
than likely that our poet when he speaks 
in the poem of Plato's Tractate had in 
mind this latter day mystical Neoplatonism 
and felt much as Symonds does about it 
when he exclaims, "There is something ludi- 
crous as well as sad in the spectacle of 
this sophist, nourishing the vain fancy that 
he might coin a complete religious system, 
which would supersede Christianity and 
restore vigor to the decayed body of the 
Greek empire." 

For a sudden and rapid rise from obscurity 
to the Papal throne one does not need to go 
to legend, for history supplies the remarkable 
instance of Pope Nicholas V who, however, 
was true to his word that if ever he obtained 
wealth he would devote it to books and 
buildings. He flourished in the hey-day of 
the revival of learning. Born at Pisa in 1398, 
he was taken while yet an infant to Sarzana, 
whither his parents were exiled. Though 
very poor this young Tommaso Parenturelli 
managed to attend the University of Bologna, 



THE ITALIAN SCHOLAR 175 

where he studied theology and the seven 
Hberal arts. Next we hear of him totally 
destitute, seeking work in Florence, where he 
was engaged first as house tutor to the children 
of Rinaldo degli Albizzi and afterwards to 
those of Palla degli Strozzi. With the money 
obtained here he returned to Bologna and 
took his degree of Doctor of Theology at the 
age of twenty-two. Soon he acquires a patron 
in Niccolo degli Albergati, Archbishop of 
Bologna, who appoints him controller of his 
household. Albergati was one of the Car- 
dinals of Eugenius IV, and, when the papal 
court went to Florence, he went also, and 
took Tommaso with him. It was not long 
before he became known to Cosimo de' 
Medici, and so grew to be a constant attendant 
at the gatherings of the learned. 

How he appeared at this time is graphically 
described by Vespasiano. "It was the cus- 
tom for many men of learning to congregate 
every morning and evening at the side of the 
Palazzo where they entered into discussions 
and disputes on various subjects. As soon 
then as Maestro Tommaso had attended the 
Cardinal to the Palazzo, he joined them, 
mounted on a mule, with two servants on 
foot; and generally he was attired in blue 
and his servants in long dresses of a darker 



176 BROWNING'S ITALY 

color. In the place I have named he was 
always to be found conversing and dis- 
puting, since he was a most impassioned 
debater." 

At this time he was always buying books, 
even borrowing money to secure them. 

In 1443 Albergati died and soon after 
Eugenius promoted Tommaso to the see of 
Bologna; within a few months he was made 
Cardinal and in 1447 he was elected Pope 
of Rome. His love for books resulted in his 
founding the Vatican library, and his erudi- 
tion in his being a munificent patron of learn- 
ing. So the true story of Pope Nicholas V is 
not sullied by the selfishness displayed by the 
Greek, but it shows the stuff out of which 
such a story might grow. 

Though at the end of the poem Browning 
speaks of lilting in lazy fashion this legend 
of Padua, yet we cannot help feeling that in 
treating his subject he has been conscious 
of all these diverse elements that went to 
the making of the intellectually awakened 
Italy, into which was coming by various 
channels the learning of the Arab and the 
learning of the Greek, both of which had 
their battles to fight sooner or later with the 
Church. 



THE ITALIAN SCHOLAR 177 

PIETRO OF ABANO 

Petrus Aponensis — there was a magician! 

When that strange adventure happened, which I mean to tell 

my hearers, 
Nearly had he tried all trades — beside physician. 
Architect, astronomer, astrologer, — or worse : 
How else, as the old books warrant, was he able. 
All at once, through all the world, to prove the promptest of 

appearers 
Where was prince to cure, tower to build as high as Babel, 
Star to name or sky-sign read, — yet pouch, for pains, a 

curse ? 

— Curse : for when a vagrant, — foot-sore, travel-tattered. 
Now a young man, now an old man, Turk or Arab, Jew or 

Proffered folk in passing — Oh, for pay, what mattered ? — 
" I'll be doctor. I'll play builder, star I'll name — sign read!'* 
Soon as prince was cured, tower built, and fate predicted, 
"Who may you be?" came the question; when he answered 

*^ Petrus ipse,'* 
"Just as we divined!" cried folk — "A wretch convicted 
Long ago of deahng with the devil — you indeed!" 

So, they cursed him roundly, all his labor's payment, 
Motioned him — the convalescent prince would — to vacate 

the presence: 
Babylonians plucked his beard and tore his raiment, 
Drove him from that tower he built: while, had he peered at 

stars. 
Town howled '* Stone the quack who styles our Dog-star — 

Sirius!" 
Country yelled "Aroint the churl who prophesies we take no 

pleasance 



178 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Under vine and fig-tree, since the year's delirious. 

Bears no crop of any kind, — all through the planet Mars!" 

Straightway would the whilom youngster grow a grisard, 

Or, as case might hap, the hoary eld drop off and show a 
stripling. 

Town and country groaned — indebted to a wizard! 

"Curse — nay, kick and cuff him — fit requital of his pains! 

Gratitude in word or deed were wasted truly! 

Rather make the Church amends by crying out on, cramp- 
ing, crippling 

One who, on pretence of serving man, serves duly 

Man's arch foe: not ours, be sure, but Satan's — his the 
gains!" 

Peter grinned and bore it, and such disgraceful usage: 
Somehow, cuffs and kicks and curses seem ordained his like 

to suffer: 
Prophet's pay with Christians, now as in the Jew's age. 
Still is — stoning: so, he meekly took his wage and went, 

— Safe again was found ensconced in those old quarters, 
Padua's blackest blindest by-street, — none the worse, nay, 

somewhat tougher: 
"Calculating," quoth he, "soon I join the martyrs. 
Since, who magnify my lore on burning me are bent." 

Therefore, on a certain evening, to his alley 

Peter slunk, all bruised and broken, sore in body, sick in 

spirit. 
Just escaped from Cairo where he launched a galley 
Needing neither sails nor oars nor help of wind or tide 

— Needing but the fume of fire to set a-flying 

Wheels like mad which whirled you quick — North, South, 
where'er you pleased require it, — 



THE ITALIAN SCHOLAR 179 

That is — would have done so had not priests come prying. 
Broke his engine up and bastinadoed him beside. 

As he reached his lodgings, stopped there unmolested, 
(Neighbors feared him, urchins fled him, few were bold 

enough to follow) 
While his fumbling fingers tried the lock and tested 
Once again the queer key's virtue, oped the sullen door, — 
Some one plucked his sleeve, cried, "Master, pray your 

pardon ! 
Grant a word to me who patient wait you in your archway's 

hollow ! 
Hard on you men's hearts are: be not your heart hard on 
Me who kiss your garment's hem, O Lord of magic lore! 

" Mage — say I, who no less, scorning tittle-tattle, 

To the vulgar give no credence when they prate of Peter's 

magic. 
Deem his art brews tempest, hurts the crops and cattle, 
Hinders fowls from laying eggs and worms from spinning silk. 
Rides upon a he-goat, mounts at need a broomstick: 
While the price he pays for this (so turns to comic what was 

tragic) 
Is — he may not drink — dreads like the Day of Doom's 

tick — 
One poor drop of sustenance ordained mere men — that's 

milk! 

"Tell such tales to Padua! Think me no such dullard! 
Not from these benighted parts did I derive my breath and 

being! 
I am from a land whose cloudless skies are colored 
Livelier, suns orb largelier, airs seem incense, — while, on 

earth — 



180 BROWNING'S ITALY 

What, instead of grass, our fingers and our thumbs cull, 
Proves true moly! sounds and sights there help the body*s 

hearing, seeing. 
Till the soul grows godlike : brief, — you front no numskull 
Shaming by ineptitude the Greece that gave him birth! 

"Mark within my eye its iris mystic-lettered — 

That's my name! and note my ear — its swan-shaped cavity, 

my emblem! 
Mine's the swan-like nature born to fly unfettered 
Over land and sea in search of knowledge — food for song. 
Art denied the vulgar! Geese grow fat on barley. 
Swans require ethereal provend, undesirous to resemble 

'em — 
Soar to seek Apollo — favored with a parley 
Such as, Master, you grant me — who will not hold you long. 

"Leave to learn to sing — for that your swan petitions: 
Master, who possess the secret, say not nay to such a suitor! 
All I ask is — bless mine, purest of ambitions ! 
Grant me leave to make my kind wise, free, and happy! 

How? 
Just by making me — as you are mine — their model! 
Geese have goose-thoughts: make a swan their teacher first, 

then coadjutor, — 
Let him introduce swan-notions to each noddle, — 
Geese will soon grow swans, and men become what I am 

now! 

"That's the only magic — had but fools discernment. 
Could they probe and pass into the solid through the soft and 

seeming! 
Teach me such true magic — now, and no adjournment! 
Teach your art of making fools subserve the man of mind! 



THE ITALIAN SCHOLAR 181 

Magic is the power we men of mind should practice, 
Draw fools to become our drudges — docile henceforth, 

never dreaming — 
While they do our hests for fancied gain — the fact is 
What they toil and moil to get proves falsehood: truth's 

behind! 

"See now! you conceive some fabric — say, a mansion 
Meet for monarch's pride and pleasure: this is truth — a 

thought has fired you, 
Made you fain to give some cramped concept expansion, 
Put your faculty to proof, fulfil your nature's task. 
First you fascinate the monarch's self: he fancies 
He it was devised the scheme you execute as he inspired you: 
He in turn set slaving insignificances 
Toiling, moiling till your structure stands there — all you ask! 

"Soon the monarch's known for what he was — a ninny: 
Soon the rabble-rout leave labor, take their work-day wage 

and vanish: 
Soon the late puffed bladder, pricked, shows lank and 

skinny — 
*Who was its inflator?' ask we, 'whose the giant lungs?* 
Petri en pulmones! What though men prove ingrates ? 
Let them — so they stop at crucifixion — buffet, ban and 

banish! 
Peter's power's apparent: human praise — its din grates 
Harsh as blame on ear unused to aught save angels' tongues. 

"Ay, there have been always, since our world existed. 
Mages who possessed the secret — needed but to stand still, 

fix eye 
On the foolish mortal: straight was he enlisted 
Soldier, scholar, servant, slave — no matter for the style! 



182 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Only through illusion; ever what seemed profit — 
Love or lucre — justified obedience to the I'pse dixit 
Work done — palace reared from pavement up to soflit — 
Was it strange if builders smelt out cheating all the while ? 

"Let them pelt and pound, bruise, bray you in a mortar! 
What's the odds to you who seek reward of quite another 

nature ? 
You've enrolled your name where sages of your sort are, 
— Michael of Constantinople, Hans of Halberstadt! 
Nay and were you nameless, still you've your conviction 
You it was and only you — what signifies the nomenclature ? — ■ 
Ruled the world in fact, though how you ruled be fiction 
Fit for fools : true wisdom's magic you — if e'er man — had t'! 

"But perhaps you ask me, * Since each ignoramus 
While he profits by such magic persecutes the benefactor, 
What should I expect but — once I render famous 
You as Michael, Hans, and Peter — just one ingrate more ? 
If the vulgar prove thus, whatsoe'er the pelf be. 
Pouched through my beneficence — and doom me dun- 
geoned, chained, or racked, or 
Fairly burned outright — how grateful will yourself be 
When, his secret gained, you match your — master just 
before ? * 

"That's where I await you! Please, revert a little! 

What do folk report about you if not this — which, though 

chimeric. 
Still, as figurative, suits you to a tittle — 
That, — although the elements obey your nod and wink. 
Fades or flowers the herb you chance to smile or sigh at. 
While your frown bids earth quake palled by obscuration 

atmospheric, — 



THE ITALIAN SCHOLAR 183 

Brief, although through nature naught resists your fiat. 
There's yet one poor substance mocks you — milk you may 
not drink! 

"Figurative language! Take my explanation! 

Fame with fear, and hate with homage, these your art pro- 
cures in plenty. 

All's but daily dry bread: what makes moist the ration? 

Love, the milk that sweetens man his meal — alas, you lack: 

I am he who, since he fears you not, can love you. 

Love is born of heart not mind, de corde natus haud de mente; 

Touch my heart and love's yours, sure as shines above you 

Sun by day and star by night though earth should go to 
wrack! 

** Stage by stage you lift me — kiss by kiss I hallow 
Whose but your dear hand my helper, punctual as at each 

new impulse 
I approach my aim ? Shell chipped, the eaglet callow 
Needs a parent's pinion-push to quit the eyrie's edge: 
But once fairly launched forth, denizen of ether, 
While each effort sunward bids the blood more freely through 

each limb pulse. 
Sure the parent feels, as gay they soar together. 
Fully are all pains repaid when love redeems its pledge!" 

Then did Peter's tristful visage lighten somewhat, 

Vent a watery smile as though inveterate mistrust were thaw- 
ing. 

"Well, who knows?" he slow broke silence. "Mortals — 
come what 

Come there may — are still the dupes of hope there's luck 
in store. 

Many scholars seek me, promise mounts and marvels: 



184 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Here stand I to witness how they step 'twixt me and clapper- 
clawing! 
Dry bread, — that I've gained me: truly I should starve else: 
But of milk, no drop was mine! Well, shuffle cards once 



more 



At the word of promise thus implied, our stranger — 
What can he but cast his arms, in rapture of embrace, round 

Peter ? 
"Hold! I choke!" the mage grunts. "Shall I in the manger 
Any longer play the dog? Approach, my calf, and feed! 
Bene . . . won't you wait for grace?" But sudden incense 
Wool-white, serpent-sohd, curled up — perfume growing 

sweet and sweeter 
Till it reached the young man's nose and seemed to win sense 
Soul and all from out his brain through nostril: yes, indeed! 

Presently the young man rubbed his eyes. "Where am I? 
Too much bother over books! Some reverie has proved 

amusing. 
What did Peter prate of? 'Faith, my brow is clammy! 
How my head throbs, how my heart thumps! Can it be I 

swooned ? 
Oh, I spoke my speech out — cribbed from Plato's tractate, 
Dosed him with 'the Fair and Good,' swore — Dog of Egypt 

— I was choosing 
Plato's way to serve men! What's the hour? Exact eight! 
Home now, and to-morrow never mind how Plato mooned! 

"Peter has the secret! Fair and Good are products 
(So he said) of Foul and Evil: one must bring to pass the other. 
Just as poisons grow drugs, steal through sundry odd ducts 
Doctors name and ultimately issue safe and changed. 
You'd abolish poisons, treat disease with dainties 



THE ITALIAN SCHOLAR 185 

Such as suit the sound and sane ? With all such kickshaws 

vain you pother! 
Arsenic's the stuff puts force into the faint eyes. 
Opium sets the brain to rights — by cark and care deranged. 

"What, he's safe within door? — would escape — no ques- 
tion — 
Thanks, since thanks and more I owe, and mean to pay in 

time befitting. 
What most presses now is — after night's digestion, 
Peter, of thy precepts ! — promptest practice of the same. 
Let me see! The wise man, first of all, scorns riches: 
But to scorn them must obtain them: none believes in his 

permitting 
Gold to lie ungathered: who picks up, then pitches 
Gold away — philosophizes : none disputes his claim. 

"So with worldly honors: 'tis by abdicating, 

Incontestably he proves he could have kept the crown dis- 
carded. 

Sulla cuts a figure, leaving off dictating: 

Simpletons laud private life.'' 'The grapes are sour,' laugh 
we. 

So, again — but why continue ? All's tumultuous 

Here: my head's a-whirl with knowledge. Speedily shall be 
rewarded 

He who taught me ! Greeks prove ingrates ? So insult you 
us? 

When your teaching bears its first-fruits, Peter — wait and 
see!" 

As the word, the deed proved; ere a brief year's passage. 
Fop — that fool he made the jokes on — now he made the 
jokes for, gratis: 



186 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Hunks — that hoarder, long left lonely in his crass age — 
Found now one appreciative deferential friend: 
Powder-paint-and-patch, Hag Jezebel — recovered, 
Strange to say, the power to please, got courtship till she 

cried Jam satis! 
Fop be-flattered. Hunks be-fri ended, Hag be-lovered — 
Nobody o'erlooked, save God — he soon attained his end. 

As he lounged at ease one morning in his villa, 

(Hag's the dowry) estimated (Hunks' bequest) his coin in 

coffer. 
Mused on how a fool's good word (Fop's word) could fill a 
Social circle with his praise, promote him man of mark, — 
All at once — "An old friend fain would see your Highness!" 
There stood Peter, skeleton and scarecrow, plain writ Phi- 

lo-so-pher 
In the woe-worn face — for yellowness and dryness, 
Parchment — with a pair of eyes — one hope their feeble 

spark. 

** Did I counsel rightly ? Have you, in accordance, 
Prospered greatly, dear my pupil ? Sure, at just the stage I 

find you, 
When your hand may draw me forth from the mad war-dance 
Savages are leading round your master — down, not dead. 
Padua wants to burn me: balk them, let me linger 
Life out — rueful though its remnant — hid in some safe 

hold behind you! 
Prostrate here I lie: quick, help with but a finger 
Lest I house in safety's self — a tombstone o'er my head! 

" Lodging, bite and sup, with — now and then — a copper 
— ^Alms for any poorer still, if such there be, — is all my 
asking. 



THE ITALIAN SCHOLAR 187 

Take me for your bedesman, — nay, if you think proper, 
Menial merely, — such my perfect passion for repose! 
Yes, from out your plenty Peter craves a pittance 
— Leave to thaw his frozen hands before the fire whereat 

you're basking! 
Double though your debt were, grant this boon — remittance 
He proclaims of obligation: 'tis himself that owes!" 

"Venerated Master — can it be, such treatment 

Learning meets with, magic fails to guard you from, by all 

appearance ? 
Strange! for, as you entered, — what the famous feat meant, 
I was full of, — why you reared that fabric, Padua's boast. 
Nowise for man's pride, man's pleasure, did you slyly 
Raise it, but man's seat of rule whereby the world should 

soon have clearance 
(Happy world) from such a rout as now so vilely 
Handles you — and hampers me, for which I grieve the most. 

"Since if it got wind you now were my familiar, 

How could I protect you — nay, defend myself against the 

rabble ? 
Wait until the mob, now masters, willy-nilly are 
Servants as they should be: then has gratitude full play! 
Surely this experience shows how unbefitting 
'Tis that minds like mine should rot in ease and plenty. 

Geese may gabble. 
Gorge, and keep the ground: but swans are soon for quitting 
Earthly fare — as fain would I, your swan, if taught the way. 

"Teach me, then, to rule men, have them at my pleasure! 
Solely for their good, of course, — impart a secret worth 

rewarding. 
Since the proper life's-prize! Tantalus's treasure 



188 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Aught beside proves, vanishes, and leaves no trace at all. 
Wait awhile, nor press for payment prematurely! 
Over-haste defrauds you. Thanks! since, — even while I 

speak, — discarding 
Sloth and vain delights, I learn how — swiftly, surely — 
Magic sways the sceptre, wears the crown and wields the ball! 

"Gone again — what, is he? 'Faith, he's soon disposed of! 
Peter's precepts work already, put within my lump their 

leaven ! 
Ay, we needs must don glove would we pluck the rose — doff 
Silken garment would we climb the tree and take its fruit. 
Why sharp thorn, rough rind ? To keep unviolated 
Either prize! We garland us, we mount from earth to feast 

in heaven. 
Just because exist what once we estimated 
Hindrances which, better taught, as helps we now compute. 

"Foolishly I turned disgusted from my fellows! 

Pits of ignorance — to fill, and heaps of prejudices — to 

level — 
Multitudes in motley, whites and blacks and yellows — 
What a hopeless task it seemed to discipline the host! 
Now I see my error. Vices act like virtues 
— Not alone because they guard — sharp thorns — the rose 

we first dishevel. 
Not because they scrape, scratch — rough rind — through 

the dirt-shoes 
Bare feet cling to bole with, while the half-mooned boot we 

boast. 

"No, my aim is nobler, more disinterested! 
Man shall keep what seemed to thwart him, since it proves 
his true assistance, 



THE ITALIAN SCHOLAR 189 

Leads to ascertaining which head is the best head, 
Would he crown his body, rule its members — lawless else. 
Ignorant the horse stares, by deficient vision 
Takes a man to be a monster, lets him mount, then, twice 

the distance 
Horse could trot unridden, gallops — dream Elysian! — 
Dreaming that his dwarfish guide's a giant, — jockeys tell 's." 

Brief, so worked the spell, he promptly had a riddance: 
Heart and brain no longer felt the pricks which passed for 

conscience-scruples : 
Free henceforth his feet, — Per Bacco, how they did dance 
Merrily through lets and checks that stopped the way before! 
Politics the prize now, — such adroit adviser. 
Opportune suggester, with the tact that triples and quadruples 
Merit in each measure, — never did the Kaiser 
Boast as subject such a statesman, friend, and something 

more! 

As he, up and down, one noonday, paced his closet 
— Council o'er, each spark (his hint) blown flame, by col- 
leagues' breath applauded. 
Strokes of statecraft hailed with *' Salomo si nosset!** 
(His the nostrum) — every throw for luck come double-six, — 
As he, pacing, hugged himself in satisfaction. 
Thump, — the door went. " What, the Kaiser ? By none 

else were I defrauded 
Thus of well-earned solace. Since 'tis fate's exaction, — 
Enter, Liege my lord ! Ha, Peter, you here ? Teneor vixl " 

"Ah, Sir, none the less, contain you, nor wax irate! 
You so lofty, I so lowly, — vast the space which yawns be- 
tween us! 
Still, methinks, you — more than ever — at a high rate 



190 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Needs must prize poor Peter's secret since it lifts you thus. 

Grant me now the boon whereat before you boggled! 

Ten long years your march has moved — one triumph — • 

— (though e's short) — hactenusy 
While I down and down disastrously have joggled 
Till I pitch against Death's door, the true Nee Ultra Plus. 

" Years ago — some ten 'tis — since I sought for shelter, 
Craved in your whole house a closet, out of all your means 

a comfort. 
Now you soar above these: as is gold to spelter 
So is power — you urged with reason — paramount to 

wealth. 
Power you boast in plenty: let it grant me refuge! 
House-room now is out of question: find for me some strong- 
hold — some fort — 
Privacy wherein, immured, shall this Wind deaf huge 
Monster of a mob let stay the soul I'd save by stealth! 

"Ay, for all too much with magic have I tampered! 

— Lost the world, and gained, I fear, a certain place I'm to 

describe loth! 
Still, if prayer and fasting tame the pride long pampered, 
Mercy may be mine: amendment never comes too late. 
How can I amend beset by curses, kickers ? 
Pluck this brand from out the burning! Once away, I take 

my Bible-oath, 
Never more — so long as life's weak lamp-flame flickers — 
No, not once I'll tease you, but in silence bear my fate!" 

"Gently, good my Genius, Oracle unerring! 

Strange now ! can you guess on what — as in you peeped — 

it was I pondered ? 
You and I are both of one mind in preferring 



THE ITALIAN SCHOLAR 191 

Power to wealth, but — here's the point — what sort of 

power, I ask? 
Ruhng men is vulgar, easy, and ignoble: 
Rid yourself of conscience, quick you have at beck and call 

the fond herd. 
But who wields the crozier, down may fling the crow -bill: 
That's the power I covet now; soul's sway o'er souls — my 

task! 

***Well but,' you object, 'you have it, who by glamour 
Dress up lies to look like truths, mask folly in the garb of 

reason : 
Your soul acts on theirs, sure, when the people clamor, 
Hold their peace, now fight now fondle, — ear-wigged through 

the brains.' 
Possibly! but still the operation 's mundane. 
Grosser than a taste demands which — craving manna — 

kecks at peason — 
Power o'er men by wants material: why should one deign 
Rule by sordid hopes and fears — a grunt for all one's pains ? 

"No, if men must praise me, let them praise to purpose! 
Would we move the world, not earth but heaven must be our 

fulcrum — 'pou sto! 
Thus I seek to move it: Master, why interpose — 
Balk my climbing close on what's the ladder's topmost round ? 
Statecraft 'tis I step from: when by priestcraft hoisted 
Up to where my foot may touch the highest rung which fate 

allows toe. 
Then indeed ask favor. On you shall be foisted 
No excuse: I'll pay my debt, each penny of the pound! 

**Ho, my knaves without there! Lead this worthy down- 
stairs! 



192 BROWNING'S ITALY 

No farewell, good Paul — nay, Peter . . What's your name 

remembered rightly? 
Come, he's humble: out another would have flounced — airs 
Suitors often give themselves when our sort bow them forth. 
Did I touch his rags? He surely kept his distance: 
Yet, there somehow passed to me from him — where'er the 

virtue might lie — 
Something that inspires my soul — Oh, by assistance 
Doubtlessly of Peter! — still, he's worth just what he's worth! 

" 'Tis my own soul soars now : soaring — how ? By crawling! 
I'll to Rome, before Rome's feet the temporal-supreme lay 

prostrate! 
'Hands' (I'll say) 'proficient once in pulling, hauling 
This and that way men as I was minded — feet now clasp!' 
Ay, the Kaiser's self has wrung them in his fervor! 
Now — they only sue to slave for Rome, nor at one doit the 

cost rate, , 

Rome's adopted child — no bone, no muscle, nerve or 
Sinew of me but I'll strain, thoughout my life I gasp!" 

As he stood one evening proudly — (he had traversed 
Rome on horseback — peerless pageant! — claimed the 

Lateran as new Pope) — 
Thinking "All's attained now! Pontiff! Who could have erst 
Dreamed of my advance so far when, some ten years ago, 
I embraced devotion, grew from priest to bishop. 
Gained the Purple, bribed the Conclave, got the Two-thirds, 

saw my coop ope, 
Came out — what Rome hails me ! O were there a wish-shop. 
Not one wish more would I purchase — Lord of all below! 

"Ha! — who dares intrude now — puts aside the arras ? 
What, old Peter, here again, at such a time, in such a presence ? 



THE ITALIAN SCHOLAR 193 

Satan sends this plague back merely to embarrass 
Me who enter on my office — little needing you! 
'Faith, I'm touched myself by age, but you look Tithon! 
Were it vain to seek of you the sole prize left — rejuvenes- 
cence ? 
Well, since flesh is grass which time must lay his scythe on, 
Say your say, and so depart and make no more ado!" 

Peter faltered — coughing first by way of prologue — 
"Holiness, your help comes late: a death at ninety little mat- 
ters. 
Padua, build poor Peter's pyre now, on log roll log. 
Burn away — I've hved my day! Yet here's the sting in 

death — 
I've an author's pride: I want my Book's survival: 
See, I've hid it in my breast to warm me 'mid the rags and 

tatters ! 
Save it — tell next age your Master had no rival! 
Scholar's debt discharged in full, be 'Thanks' my latest 
breath!" 

"Faugh, the frowsy bundle — scribbling harum-scarum 
Scattered o'er a dozen sheepskins! What's the name of this 

farrago ? 
Ha — ' Conciliator Dijferentiarum ' — 

Man and book may burn together, cause the world no loss! 
Stop — what else ? A tractate — eh, *De Speciebus 
Ceremonialis Ma-gi-ae?* I dream sure! Hence, away, go, 
Wizard, — quick avoid me! Vain you clasp my knee, buss 
Hand that bears the Fisher's ring or foot that boasts the Cross! 

"Help! The old magician clings hke an octopus! 
Ah, you rise now — fuming, fretting, frowning, if I read your 
features! 



194 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Frown, who cares ? We're Pope — once Pope, you can't 

unpope us! 
Good — you muster up a smile: that's better! Still so brisk ? 
All at once grown youthful? But the case is plain! Ass — • 
Here I dally with the fiend, yet know the Word — compels 

all creatures 
Earthly, heavenly, hellish. Apage, Saihxinas 
Dicam verbum Salomonis — " ''dicite!" When — whisk! — • 

What was changed? The stranger gave his eyes a rubbing: 
There smiled Peter's face turned back a moment at him o'er 

the shoulder, 
As the black door shut, bang! "So he 'scapes a drubbing!" 
(Quoth a boy who, unespied, had stopped to hear the talk.) 
"That's the way to thank these wizards when they bid men 
Benedicite! What ails you ? You, a man, and yet no bolder ? 
Foreign Sir, you look but foolish!" "Idmen, idmen!" 
Groaned the Greek. " O Peter, cheese at last I know from 

chalk!" 

Peter lived his life out, menaced yet no martyr. 

Knew himself the mighty man he was — such knowledge all 

his guerdon. 
Left the world a big book — people but in part err 
When they style a true Scientiae Com-pen-di-um: 
*' Admirationem incutit** they sourly 
Smile, as fast they shut the folio which myself was somehow 

spurred on 
Once to ope: but love — life's milk which daily, hourly, 
Blockheads lap — O Peter, still thy taste of love's to come! 

Greek, was your ambition likewise doomed to failure ? 
True, I find no record you wore purple, walked with axe and 

fasces. 
Played some antipope's part: still, friend, don't turn tail, you're 
Certain, with but these two gifts, to gain earth's prize in time! 



THE ITALIAN SCHOLAR 195 

Cleverness uncurbed by conscience — if you ransacked 
Peter's book you'd find no potent spell like these to rule the 

masses; 
Nor should want example, had I not to transact 
Other business. Go your ways, you'll thrive! So ends my rhyme. 



When these parts Tiberius — not yet Caesar — travelled. 
Passing Padua, he consulted Padua's Oracle of Geryon 
(God three-headed, thrice wise) just to get unravelled 
Certain tangles of his future. "Fling at Abano 
Golden dice," it answered; "dropt within the fount there. 
Note what sum the pips present! " And still we see each die, 

the very one. 
Turn up, through the crystal, — read the whole account there 
Where 'tis told by Suetonius, — each its highest throw 

Scarce the sportive fancy-dice I fling show "Venus:" 

Still — for love of that dear land which I so oft in dreams 

revisit — 
I have — oh, not sung! but lilted (as — between us — 
Grows my lazy custom) this its legend. W^hat the lilt ? 



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196 BROWNING'S ITALY 

The Grammarian belongs to a later stage 
of development in Italian culture. Brown- 
ing dates the poem "Shortly after the Revival 
of Learning," so we may consider that this 
learned man belongs to the rising or flood 
tide of humanism, before the appearance of 
those degenerate tendencies that self-seeking 
later brought upon it. The talks by Gemis- 
tos Plethon in Florence, already mentioned, 
are by some given as the date of the begin- 
ning of the Revival of Learning. 

He certainly exerted a tremendous influence 
through Cosimo de' Medici, whom he con- 
vinced of the importance of the study of 
Plato, and who thereupon founded the famous 
Florentine Academy. Cosimo also appointed 
young Marsilio Ficino to the important 
oflSce of translating and explaining the Pla- 
tonic writings. This Academy exerted a pro- 
found influence over the thought not only of 
Italy but of Germany, and so persistent was 
the influence of Gemistos that, as Symonds 
remarks, ''Platonic studies in Italy never 
recovered from the impress of Neoplatonic 
mysticism which proceeded from his mind." 

But it must not be forgotten that there w as 
already a Greek professorship in Florence, 
held by Manuel Chrysoloras, a Byzantine of 
noble birth. He came first to Venice on an 



THE ITALIAN SCHOLAR 197 

important church mission, was visited there 
by the Florentines, Roberto di Rossi and 
Giacomo d'Angelo Scarparia. The latter 
went back to Byzantium with him, and Rossi, 
returning to Florence, enlarged so upon the 
erudite qualities of the learned Greek that 
the Signory sent him an invitation to fill the 
Greek chair in the university, which he 
accepted in 1S96. Thus it was that Greeks 
came to Italy and Italians went to Constan- 
tinople to learn Greek. As Sedgwick puts 
it "The humanists played a part analogous 
to that which men of science play to-day. 
They devoted themselves heart and soul to 
the classics, as men of science do to nature. 
For some time they had had access to the 
Latin past through Italy, and now they also 
found their way to the far greater classic 
world of Greece. The one uninterrupted 
communication with that world was through 
Constantinople, which, like a long, ill-lighted 
and ill-repaired corridor, led back to the 
great pleasure domes of Plato and Homer, 
and all the wonderland of Greek literature 
and thought." 

Although in the fourteenth century great 
and general enthusiasm for classical antiquity 
burst forth, it was not until the fifteenth that 
new discoveries of manuscripts were made, 



198 BROWNING'S ITALY 

and the systematic creation of libraries begun 
by means of copies and the rapid multiphca- 
tion of translations from the Greek. Burck- 
hard declares that if it had not been for the 
** enthusiasm of a few collectors of the age, who 
shrank from no effort or privation in their 
researches, we should certainly possess only 
a small part of the literature, especially 
that of the Greeks, which is now in our 
hands." Many are the stories told of for- 
tunes spent and time devoted to the collec- 
tion of manuscripts. Pope Nicholas V, 
whom we have already mentioned, when only 
a simple monk, ran deeply into debt through 
buying manuscripts or having them copied, 
and when he became Pope he gave enormous 
sums for translations of Polybius, Strabo, 
and others. 

A Florentine, Niccoto Niccoli, spent his 
whole fortune in buying books and at last 
when his money gave out, the Medici allowed 
him to draw upon them to any amount. 

Following upon the collection of manu- 
scripts came the study of them, which was 
carried on to some extent in the Universities, 
but more especially in monasteries and by 
private individuals singly or in groups. The 
Latin schools, too, which existed in every 
town of any importance, attained under dis- 



THE ITALIAN SCHOLAR 199 

tinguished humanists great perfection of or- 
ganization and became instruments of higher 
education. But, on the whole, individual 
enterprise seems to have accompHshed the 
greatest results. 

Burckhard tells at length of two humanist 
teachers who remind us much of Browning's 
Grammarian in their utter devotion. *'At 
the court of Giovan Francesco Gonzaga at 
Mantua appeared the illustrious Vittorino da 
Feltre — one of those men who devote their 
whole life to an object for which their natural 
gifts constitute a special vocation. He wrote 
almost nothing and finally destroyed the 
few poems of his youth which he had long 
kept by him. He studied with unwearied 
industry; he never sought after titles, which, 
like all outward distinctions, he scorned; and 
he lived on terms of the closest friendship 
with teachers, companions, and pupils, whose 
good-will he knew how to preserve. He 
excelled in bodily no less than in mental 
exercises, was an admirable rider, dancer, 
and fencer, wore the same clothes in winter 
as in summer, walked in nothing but sandals 
even during the severest frost, and lived 
so that until his old age he was never ill. 
He so restrained his passions, his natural 
inclination to sensuality and anger, that he 



200 BROWNING'S ITALY 

remained chaste his whole life through and 
hardly ever hurt any one by a hard word. 

*'He directed the education of the sons and 
daughters of the princely house, and one of 
the latter became under his care a woman of 
learning. When his reputation extended far 
and wide over Italy, and numbers of great 
and wealthy families came from far and 
wide, even from Germany in search of his 
instructions, Gonzaga was not only willing 
that they should be received, but seems to 
have held it an honor for Mantua to be the 
chosen school of the aristocratic world. Here 
for the first time gymnastics and all noble 
bodily exercises were treated along with 
scientific instruction as indispensable to a 
liberal education. Besides these pupils came 
others, whose instruction Vittorino probably 
held to be his highest earthly aim, the gifted 
poor, often as many as seventy together, 
whom he supported in his house and educated 
along with the other high-born youths who 
here learned to live under the same roof with 
untitled genius. The greater the crowd of 
pupils who flocked to Mantua the more 
teachers were needed to impart the instruc- 
tion which aimed at giving each pupil that 
sort of learning which he was most fitted to 
receive. Gonzaga paid him a yearly salary 



THE ITALIAN SCHOLAR 201 

of two hundred and forty gold florins, built 
him besides a splendid house, **La Giocosa," 
in which the master lived with his scholars 
and contributed to the expenses caused by 
the poorer pupils. What was still further 
needed Vittorino begged from princes and 
wealthy people, who did not always, it is 
true, give a ready ear to his entreaties, and 
forced him by their hard-heartedness to run 
into debt. Yet in the end he found himself 
in comfortable circumstances, owned a small 
property in town, and an estate in the country 
where he stayed with his pupils during the 
holidays, and possessed a famous collection 
of books which he gladly lent or gave away, 
though he was not a little angry when they 
were taken without leave. In the early 
morning he read religious books, then scourged 
himself and went to church; his pupils were 
also compelled to go to church, like him to 
confess once a month, and to observe fast 
days most strictly. His pupils respected him, 
but trembled before his glance. When they 
did anything wrong, they were punished 
immediately after the offense. He was 
honored by all his contemporaries no less 
than by his pupils and people took the 
journey to Mantua merely to see him." 

Another equally interesting scholar of the 



202 BROWNING'S ITALY 

time was Guarino of Verona. In 1429 he 
was called to Ferrara to educate Lionello, 
the son of Niccolo d'Este. 

'*He had many other pupils besides Lionello 
from various parts of the country, and, besides, 
supported wholly or in part a select class of 
poor scholars in his own house. He laid 
more stress on pure scholarship than Vit- 
torino. Far into the night he heard lessons 
or indulged in instructive conversation. Yet 
with all this he found time to write transla- 
tions from the Greek and voluminous original 
works. 

**Like Vittorino's his house was the home 
of a strict religion and morality." 

Italy was full of scholars of similar attain- 
ments to these. They were not only teachers 
and translators and professors in Universities, 
but they held important positions in the 
Church and State, but by the time the sixteenth 
century arrives a sad change in the attitude 
of society toward them has to be recorded. 
"The whole class fell into deep and general 
disgrace," writes Burckhard. ''To the two 
chief accusations against them — that of 
malicious self-conceit, and that of abominable 
profligacy — a third charge of irreligion was 
now loudly added by the rising powers of 
the Counter-reformation." 



THE ITALIAN SCHOLAR 203 

The humanists themselves were loudest 
in defaming one another. 

Burckhard's summing up explains this 
downfall as fully, perhaps, as it can be at 
this distance of time. "Three facts," he 
says ** explain and perhaps diminish their 
guilt: the overflowing excess of favor and 
fortune when the luck was on their side; the 
uncertainty of the future in which luxury or 
misery depended on the caprice of a patron 
or the malice of an enemy, and finally the 
misleading influence of antiquity. This un- 
dermined their morality without giving them 
its own instead; and in religious matters, 
since they could never think of accepting the 
positive belief in the old gods, it affected them 
only on the negative and sceptical side. Just 
because they conceived of antiquity dogmat- 
ically — that is, took it for the model of all 
thought and action — its influence was here 
pernicious. But that an age existed which 
idolized the ancient world and its products 
with an exclusive devotion, was not the fault 
of individuals. It was the work of an historical 
providence, and all the culture of the ages 
which have followed and of the ages to come 
rests upon the fact that it was so, and that 
all the ends of life but this one were then 
deliberately put aside." 



204 BROWNING'S ITALY 

In *'The Grammarian's Funeral," Browning 
has preserved for us the breath and finer spirit 
of this scholarly aspect of the Renaissance. 

We may imagine the pupils of Vittorino 
or Guarino burying their master in the same 
lofty spirit. Figuratively speaking their 
memories are enshrined upon the heights of 
humanism in its most aspiring manifestations, 
and similarly the poem is, as it were, the 
supreme blossom of art growing out of the 
complex elements provided by the historians 
of the learning of the time. 

A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL 

SHORTLY AFTER THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING IN EUROPE 

Let us begin and carry up this corpse, 

Singing together. 
Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes 

Each in its tether 
Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain, 

Cared-for till cock-crow: 
Look out if yonder be not day again 

Rimming the rock-row! 
That's the appropriate country; there, man's thought, 

Rarer, intenser, 
Self -gathered for an outbreak, as it ought. 

Chafes in the censer. 
Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop; 

Seek we sepulture 
On a tall mountain, citied to the top, 

Crowded with culture! 



THE ITALIAN SCHOLAR 205 

All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels; 

Clouds overcome it; 
No! yonder sparkle is the citadel's 

Circling its summit. 
Thither our path hes; wind we up the heights; 

Wait ye the warning ? 
Our low life was the level's and the night's; 

He's for the morning. 
Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head, 

'Ware the beholders! 
This is our master, famous, calm and dead, 

Borne on our shoulders. 

Sleep, crop and herd! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft. 

Safe from the weather! 
He, whom we convoy to his grave aloft, 

Singing together. 
He was a man born with thy face and throat. 

Lyric Apollo! 
Long he lived nameless: how should Spring take note 

Winter would follow ? 
Till lo! the little touch, and youth was gone. 

Cramped and diminished. 
Moaned he, "New measures, other feet anon! 

My dance is finished " ? 
No, that's the world's way: (keep the mountain-side. 

Make for the city!) 
He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride 

Over men's pity; 
Left play for work, and grappled with the world 

Bent on escaping: 
"What's in the scroll," quoth he, "thou keepest furled? 

Show me their shaping, 



206 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Theirs who most studied man, the bard and sage, — 

Give!" — So, he gowned him, 
Straight got my heart that book to its last page: 

Learned, we found him. 
Yea, but we found him bald too, eyes like lead, 

Accents uncertain: 
"Time to taste life," another would have said, 

"Up with a curtain!" 
This man said rather, "Actual life comes next? 

Patience a moment! 
Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text, 

Still there's the comment. 
Let me know all! Prate not of most or least. 

Painful or easy! 
Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast, 

Ay, nor feel queasy." 
Oh, such a life as he resolved to live, 

When he had learned it, 
"When he had gathered all books had to give! 

Sooner, he spurned it. 
Image the whole, then execute the parts — 

Fancy the fabric 
Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz. 

Ere mortar dab brick! 

(Here's the town-gate reached: there's the market-place 

Gaping before us.) 
Yea, this in him was the pecuhar grace 

(Hearten our chorus!) 
That before living he'd learn how to live — 

No end to learning: 
Earn the means first — God surely will contrive 

Use for our earning. 



THE ITALIAN SCHOLAR 207 

Others mistrust and say, "But time escapes: 

Live now or never!" 
He said, "What's time? Leave Now for dogs and apes! 

Man has Forever." 
Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head: 

Calculus racked him: 
Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead: 

Tussis attacked him. 
"Now, master, take a Httle rest!" — not he! 

(Caution redoubled. 
Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly!) 

Not a whit troubled. 
Back to his studies, fresher than at first, 

Fierce as a dragon 
He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst) 

Sucked at the flagon. 
Oh, if we draw a circle premature, 

Heedless of far gain. 
Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure 

Bad is our bargain! 
Was it not great "? did not he throw on God, 

(He loves the burthen) — 
God's task to make the heavenly period 

Perfect the earthen ? 
Did not he magnify the mind, show clear 

Just what it all meant ? 
He would not discount life, as fools do here. 

Paid by instalment. 
He ventured neck or nothing — heaven's success 

Found, or earth's failure: 
"Wilt thou trust death or not?" He answered "Yes! 

Hence with life's pale lure!" 
That low man seeks a little thing to do, 

Sees it and does it: 



208 BROWNING'S ITALY 

This high man, with a great thing to pursue. 

Dies ere he knows it. 
That low man goes on adding one to one. 

His hundred's soon hit: 
This high man, aiming at a. million, 

Misses an unit. 
That, has the world here — should he need the next, 

Let the world mind him! 
This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed 

Seeking shall find him. 
So, with the throttling hands of death at strife, 

Ground he at grammar; 
Stillj through the rattle, parts of speech were rife: 

While he could stammer 
He settled Hotis business — let it be! — 

Properly based Oun — 
Gave us the doctrine of the enchtic De^ 

Dead from the waist down. 
Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place; 

Hail to your purheus, 
All ye highfliers of the feathered race. 

Swallows and curlews! 
Here's the top-peak; the multitude below 

Live, for they can, there: 
This man decided not to Live but Know — 

Bury this man there.'* 
Here — here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form. 

Lightnings are loosened. 
Stars come and go! Let joy break with the storm, 

Peace let the dew send! 
Lofty designs must close in like effects: 

Loftily lying, 
Leave him — still loftier than the world suspects. 

Living and dying. 



IV 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 

"Each Art a-strain 
Would stay the apparition, — nor in vain; 
The Poet's word-mesh, Painter's sure and swift 
Color-and-line-throw — proud the prize they lift! 
Thus felt Man and thus looked Man, — passions caught 
I' the midway swim of sea, — not much, if aught, 
Of nether-brooding loves, hates, hopes, and fears, 
Enwombed past Art's disclosure." 

— Charles Avisan. 

BROWNING'S interest in Italian art, 
in his poetry at any rate, centered 
itself principally upon the painters of the 
earlier Renaissance and upon those who 
inaugurated the later and greater Renais- 
sance in art. With the exception of Andrea 
del Sarto, who belongs in the period of the 
culmination of Italian art, though not among 
its greatest exemplars, he has celebrated 
none of those whom the world has acclaimed 
the supreme masters. In fact he very dis- 
tinctly states his determination not to do so 
in his poem, "Old Pictures in Florence": — 

209 



210 BROWNING'S ITALY 

"For oh, this world and the wrong it does; 
They are safe in heaven with their backs to it, 
The Michaels and Rafaels, you hum and buzz 
Round the works of, you of the little wit! 

"Much they reck of your praise and you! 

But the wronged great souls — can they be quit 
Of a world where their work is all to do, 

Where you style them you of the little wit. 
Old Master This and Early the Other, 

Not dreaming that Old and New are fellows: 
A younger succeeds to an elder brother. 

Da Vincis derive in good time from Dellos.'* 

What he declares that he loves is the 
season 

"Of Art's spring birth so dim and dewy; 
My sculptor is Nicolo the Pisan 

My painter — who but Cimabue ? 
Nor even was man of them all indeed. 

From these to Ghiberti and Ghirlandajo, 
Could say that he missed my critic meed.'* 

When one reads the extravagant praises 
bestowed upon these early painters and sculp- 
tors in Vasari's *' Lives of the Painters," and 
the echoes from these that appear in later 
works upon art, it would hardly seem as if 
Cimabue or Giotto or Nicolo Pisano needed 
Browning's defense. But it is well to re- 
member in this connection that one meets 
plenty of laymen who do not especially 




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THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 211 

admire Giotto's Campanile, though John 
Addington Symonds calls it "that lily among 
Campanili," and who are bored beyond 
measure by the dingy, ancient pictures to be 
found in the chapels and cloisters of Florence, 
cracked with age and melancholy by reason 
of the white-washings they have had, and 
from which they can never quite recover. 
Furthermore, Symonds, who has done more 
than any one else to set the key-note of criti- 
cism, makes a decided distinction between 
the artists of the earlier Renaissance and 
those who inaugurated the later Renaissance 
— the '*Pre-Raphaelites." For the first he 
has enthusiasm almost as unbounded as 
Vasari, but his attitude toward the latter is 
often unsympathetic, as any one may see who 
cares to compare what he has to say about 
Ghirlandajo and Botticelli with what the 
Editors of Vasari's "Lives," the Blashfields 
and A. A. Hopkins say about these same 
painters. Symonds "hummed and buzzed" 
around the Michaels and Rafaels, though 
one could hardly say he did it with "little 
wit." Among the jewels of criticism in his 
studies of the Italian Renaissance there is 
perhaps not a more brilliant one than his 
summing up of the qualities of the four great 
masters, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, 



212 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Michael Angelo, and Correggio. He hummed 
and buzzed to some purpose here. 

*'To these four men, each in his own de- 
gree and according to his own pecuHar quahty 
of mind, the fulness of the Renaissance in its 
power and freedom was revealed. They 
entered the inner shrine, where dwelt the 
spirit of their age, and bore to the world 
without the message each of them had heard. 
In their work posterity still may read the 
meaning of that epoch, differently rendered 
according to the difference of gift of each 
consummate artist, but comprehended in its 
unity by study of the four together. Leonardo 
is the wizard or diviner; to him the Renais- 
sance offers her mystery and lends her magic. 
Raphael is the Phoebean singer; to him the 
Renaissance reveals her joy and dowers him 
with her gifts of melody. Correggio is the 
Ariel or Faun, the lover and light-giver; 
he has surprised laughter upon the face of 
the universe, and he paints this laughter in 
ever- varying movement. Michael Angelo is 
the prophet and Sibylline seer; to him the 
Renaissance discloses the travail of her spirit; 
him she endues with power; he wrests her 
secret, voyaging like an ideal Columbus, the 
vast abyss of thought alone." 

Browning's attitude on the other hand. 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 213 

as expressed in this poem is very much hke 
that of the EngHsh Brotherhood of Pre- 
RaphaeUtes, who formulated their doctrines 
in 1849, only six years before this poem was 
written. We are told that Hunt, Millais, 
and Rossetti reached their final resolve through 
the study of Lasinio's engravings of the 
frescos in the Campo Santo at Pisa. *' These 
revealed to the young students an art not 
satisfied with itself, but reaching after higher 
things and earnestly seeking to interpret 
nature and human life. To be of the same 
spirit as the painters who preceded Raphael, 
using art as a means to noblest ends, and not 
merely to emulate the accomplishment of 
Raphael, as if art had said its last word when 
he died, was the ambition that the engravings 
awakened in the three young artists as they 
studied them. They were not blind to the 
genius of Raphael, nor did they deny that 
art had accomplished great things after his 
time; but, in Holman Hunt's own words, *It 
appeared to them that afterwards art was so 
frequently tainted with the canker of corrup- 
tion that it was only in the earlier work they 
could find with certainty absolute health. 
Up to a definite point the tree was healthy: 
above it disease began, side by side with life 
there appeared death.'" By way of showing 



214 BROWNING'S ITALY 

his preference for imperfect, aspiring art 
Browning draws a contrast between Greek 
art and the early Itahan art. 

"If you knew their work you would deal your dole." 

May I take upon me to instruct you ? 
When Greek Art ran and reached the goal, 

Thus much had the world to boast in fructu — 
The Truth of Man, as by God first spoken, 

Which the actual generations garble. 
Was re-uttered, and Soul (which Limbs betoken) 

And Limbs (Soul informs) made new in marble. 

** So, you saw yourself as you wished you were, 

As you might have been, as you cannot be; 
Earth here, rebuked by Olympus there: 

And grew content in your poor degree 
With your little power, by those statues' godhead, 

And your little scope, by their eyes' full sway. 
And your little grace, by their grace embodied. 

And your little date, by their forms that stay. 

" You would fain be kinglier, say, than I am ? 

Even so, you will not sit like Theseus. 
You would prove a model ? The Son of Priam 

Has yet the advantage in arms' and knees' use. 
You're wroth — can you slay your snake like Apollo ? 

You're grieved — still Niobe's the grander! 
You live — there's the Racers' frieze to follow: 

You die — there's the dying Alexander. 

** So, testing your weakness by their strength, 
Your meager charms by their rounded beauty, 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 215 

Measured by Art in your breadth and length, 
You learned — to submit is a mortal's duty. 

— When I say 'you' 'tis the common soul. 
The collective, I mean: the race of Man 

That receives Ufe in parts to hve in a whole, 
And grow here according to God's clear plan. 

" Growth came when, looking your last on them all. 

You turned your eyes inwardly one fine day 
And cried with a start — What if we so small 

Be greater and grander the while than they ? 
Are they perfect of lineament, perfect of stature? 

In both, of such lower types are we 
Precisely because of our wider nature; 

For time, theirs — ours, for eternity. 

"To-day's brief passion limits their range; 

It seethes with the morrow for us and more. 
They are perfect — how else ? they shall never change : 

We are faulty — why not .'' we have time in store. 
The Artificer's hand is not arrested 

With us; we are rough -hewn, nowise polished: 
They stand for our copy, and, once invested 

With all they can teach, we shall see them abolished. 

" 'Tis a life-long toil till our lump be leaven — 

The better! What's come to perfection perishes. 
Things learned on earth, we shall practise in heaven: 

Works done least rapidly, Art most cherishes. 
Thyself shalt afford the example, Giotto! 

Thy one work, not to decrease or diminish. 
Done at a stroke, was just (was it not?) *0!' 

Thy great Campanile is still to finish. 



216 BROWNING'S ITALY 

" Is it true that we are now, and shall be hereafter. 

But what and where depend on life's minute ? 
Hails heavenly cheer or infernal laughter 

Our first step out of the gulf or in it ? 
Shall Man, such step within his endeavor, 

Man's face, have no more play and action 
Than joy which is crystallized forever. 

Or grief, an eternal petrifaction? 

" On which I conclude, that the early painters, 

To cries of ' Greek Art and what more wish you ? ' — 
Replied, 'To become now self-acquainters. 

And paint man man, whatever the issue! 
Make new hopes shine through the flesh they fray. 

New fears aggrandize the rags and tatters: 
To bring the invisible full into play! 

Let the visible go to the dogs — what matters ? * 

*' Give these, I exhort you, their guerdon and glory 

For daring so much, before they well did it. 
The first of the new, in our race's story. 

Beats the last of the old; 'tis no idle quiddit. 
The worthies began a revolution, 

Which if on earth you intend to acknowledge, 
Why, honor them now! (ends my allocution) 

Nor confer your degree when the folk leave college." 

The poem resolves itself into a genuine 
bit of criticism with which one may or may 
not agree. Probably the wisest attitude is to 
like each phase of art for its own special 
quality. To offset Symonds' praise of the 
Masters we may take to our hearts Pater's 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 217 

exquisite appreciation of the Italian sculptors 
of the earlier half of the fifteenth century. 
He says they are "more than mere fore- 
runners of the great masters of its close, and 
often reach perfection within the narrow 
limits which they chose to impose on their 
work. Their sculpture shares with the paint- 
ings of Botticelli and the churches of Brunel- 
leschi that profound expressiveness, that 
intimate impress of an indwelling soul, which 
is the peculiar fascination of the art of Italy 
in that century. Their works l\ave been 
much neglected and often almost hidden 
away amid the frippery of modern decora- 
tion, and we come with some surprise to the 
places where their fire still smoulders. One 
longs to penetrate into the lives of the men 
who have given expression to so much power 
and sweetness, but it is part of ^the Reserve, 
the austere dignity and simplicity of their 
existence, that their lives are for the most 
part lost or told but briefly: from their lives 
as from their works all tumult of sound and 
color has passed away." 

This poem of Browning's, however, is much 
more than a criticism of Italian art; we get 
from it real glimpses of Florence and its pic- 
tures flooded with the light of the poet's own 
feeling — a half serious, half sportive mood 



218 BROWNING'S ITALY 

in which he berates the ghosts of these early 
artists whom he has always praised, because 
they do not help him to unearth some precious 
bit of which he might become the happy 
owner. Even Giotto has treated him badly 
and let some one else discover a certain rare 
little tablet. 

Let us try now and see with the poet's eyes 
what he saw 

"The morn when jBrst it thunders in March, 

The eel in the pond gives a leap they say: 
As I leaned and looked over the aloed arch 

Of the villa-gate this warm March day. 
No flash snapped, no dumb thunder rolled 

In the valley beneath where, white and wide 
And washed by the morning water-gold, 

Florence lay out on the mountain-side. 

"River and bridge and street and square 

Lay mine, as much at my beck and call, 
Through the live translucent bath of air. 

As the sights in a magic crystal ball. 
And of all I saw and of all I praised 

The most to praise and the best to see 
Was the startling bell-tower Giotto raised: 

But why did it more than startle me ? 

" Giotto, how, with that soul of yours, 

Could you play me false who loved you so ? 
Some slights if a certain heart endures 

Yet it feels. I would have you fellows know I 
I' faith, I perceive not why I should care 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 219 

To break a silence that suits them best, 
But the thing grows somewhat hard to bear, 
When I find a Giotto join the rest!" 

Any praise of Giotto will find an echo in 
the heart of most critics if not in that of all 
laymen. Cimabue, whom later on in the 
poem, Browning as we have already seen, 
calls *'his painter," was the pioneer and did 
very remarkable work as such. 

What he meant to the Florentines of his 
day is well illustrated by the story Vasari tells 
of his painting of the Virgin for the church 
of Santa Maria Novella. It was so much 
admired, they never having seen anything 
better, that it was carried in solemn procession 
with the sound of trumpets and other festal 
demonstrations from the house of Cimabue 
to the church, he himself being highly re- 
warded and honored for it. No doubt the 
poet often looked at this picture where it still 
hangs in a dark transept of Santa Maria 
Novella, and he doubtless saw what some see 
to-day, an attempt at expression which 
warmed the cockles of his heart. The spark 
of life has been struck, the figures have 
movement, as some one has facetiously said 
"Noah and his family, indeed, in the story of 
the Ark move almost with violence," but 
considering these unmistakable signs of life, 



220 BROWNING'S ITALY 

it is easy to overlook Cimabue's archaisms, — 
such as the crinkled, pointed draperies, 
characteristic of Bvzantine art. 

Everybody concedes, however, that Giotto 
was quite another matter. He outstripped 
his teacher Cimabue, bv such strides that he 
took art a hundred years forwards along the 
lines of composition, dramatic feeling and 
invention. Brownino; instinctivelv recog- 
nizes this greatness, and doesn't mind the 
fact that Giotto's faces resemble one another, 
that they have elongated eyes, short, straight, 
rather snub noses and verv full chins. And 
neither did Svmonds mind this, for he is 
enthusiastic about both Giotto and his pupils. 
*'It is no exaggeration," he says, *'to claim 
that Giotto and his scholars, within the space 
of little more than half a century, painted 
out upon the walls of the Churches and 
public places of Italy every great concep- 
tion of the Middle Ages." 

The Campanile which the poet sees from 
his villa adjoins the Duomo already spoken 
of in connection with *'Luria." 

Like the Duomo, more than one artist 
worked upon it, though the design was 
originallv Giotto's and was to have had a 
spire fifty braccia high to crown the tower. 
Unfortunately Giotto died after only three 




Giotto. 



The Campanile. 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 221 

years' work upon it, when it had reached a 
very small portion of its height. The work 
is said to have been continued by Taddeo 
Gaddi, his godson, and his pupil and disciple 
for twenty-five years. He was succeeded by 
Francesco Talenti, who it is supposed may 
have modified and enriched the design. In 
form and decoration it was quite different 
from anything that had preceded it, and in 
the opinion of many combines every element 
of beauty possible in such a work. It 
covers a square of about forty-five feet and 
towers up two hundred and seventy-five feet. 
It has no openings except the doorway on 
the east side for more than a third of the way 
up. This lower third is divided into two 
stages with a slight projection at the top of 
each stage. Above these are two stages of 
equal height and exactly similar design. 
There are two two-light windows in each 
face, beautiful in their graceful proportions 
and delicate ornamentation, with gabled 
arches and traceried balconies. To crown 
all is the belfry in a single stage much greater 
in height, and with a broad three-light open- 
ing in each face through which looks the 
blue Italian sky like a fair face more fair 
through the meshes of a veil. The wall is 
everywhere encrusted with panelings of white 



2^2 BROWNING'S ITALY 

and green marble, similar but richer than that 
of the cathedral, and with floral sculpture in 
the friezes. Figure sculpture adorns the 
lowest range of paneling in the first stage of 
the base, the designs believed to be by Giotto, 
and partly executed by him, partly by Andrea 
Pisano, Lucca della Robia and others. Also, 
in the upper stage of the base the lower 
range of paneling is ornamented with a 
series of standing figures in small, pointed 
arched niches, by Donatello, and others. 

Browning makes the incompleteness of 
this tower serve his argument of the superior 
interest attaching to the less "perfect" things 
of art. 



" 'Tis a life-long toil till our lump be leaven — 

The better! What's come to perfection perishes. 
Things learned on earth we shall practice in heaven: 

Works done least rapidly, Art most cherishes. 
Thyself shalt afford the example Giotto! 

Thy one work, not to decrease or diminish, 
Done at a stroke, was just (was it not) ' O ! ' ^ 

Thy great Campanile is yet to finish." 

1 Referring to the well-known anecdote of the envoy of Benedict 
IX who, when visiting Giotto, asked for a drawing to carry as a 
proof of his skill to the Pope. Giotto taking a sheet of paper and a 
brush-full of red paint and resting his elbow on his hip to form a 
sort of compass, with one turn of his hand drew a circle so perfect 
that it was a marvel to behold, whence the proverb " Rounder than 
the O of Giotto." 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 223 

The poet later on is guilty of a slight in- 
consistency in regard to the bell-tower, for 
after admiring it because it is not finished, 
he has an enthusiastic vision of the attaining 
of Italian political independence and its cel- 
ebration by the finishing of the spire. 

"When the hour grows ripe, and a certain dotard 

Is pitched, no parcel that needs invoicing, 
To the worse side of the Mont Saint Gothard, 

We shall begin by way of rejoicing; 
None of that shooting the sky (blank cartridge), 

Nor a civic guard, all plumes and lacquer. 
Hunting Radetzky's soul like a partridge 

Over Morello with squib and cracker. 

"This time we'll shoot better game and bag 'em hot — 

No mere display at the stone of Dante, 
But a kind of sober Witanagamot 

(Ex: 'Casa Guidi,' quod videas ante) 
Shall ponder, once Freedom restored to Florence, 

How Art may return that departed with her. 
Go, hated house, go each trace of the Loraine's, 

And bring us the days of Orgagna hither! 

"How we shall prologize, how we shall perorate. 

Utter fit things upon art and history. 
Feel truth at blood-heat and falsehood at zero rate. 

Make of the want of the age no mystery; 
Contrast the fructuous and sterile eras. 

Show — Monarchy ever its uncouth cub licks 
Out of the bear's shape into Chimsera's, 

While Pure Art's birth is still the republic's. 



2U BROWNING'S ITALY 

"Then one shall propose in a speech (curt Tuscan — 

Expurgate and sober, with scarcely an 'issimo,') 
To end now our half-told tale of Cambuscan, 

And turn the bell-tower's alt to altissimo: 
And fine as the beak of a young beccaccia 

The Campanile, the Duomo's fit ally. 
Shall soar up in gold full fifty braccia, 

Completing Florence, as Florence Italy. 

"Shall I be alive that morning the scaffold 

Is broken away, and the long pent fire, 
Like the golden hope of the world, unbaffled 

Springs from its sleep, and up goes the spire 
While 'God and the People' plain for its motto. 

Thence the new tricolor flaps at the sky? 
At least to foresee that glory of Giotto 

And Florence together, the first am I." 

In still another mood of the poem, how- 
ever, he presents a possible solution of these 
two moods. 

"There's a fancy some lean to and others hate — 

That, when this life is ended, begins 
New work for the soul in another state. 

Where it strives and gets weary, loses and wins: 
Where the strong and the weak, this world's congeries. 

Repeat in large what they practised in small, 
Through life after life in unlimited series; 

Only the scale's to be changed, that's all. 

"Yet I hardly know. When a soul has seen 
By the means of Evil that Good is best. 
And, through earth and its noise, what is heaven's serene, — 




Sculpture from Campanile Representing Agriculture. 



Giotto. 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 225 

When our faith in the same has stood the test — 
Why, the child grown man, you burn the rod. 

The uses of labor are surely done; 
There remaineth a rest for the people of God: 

And I have had troubles enough for one." 

This IS tantamount to saying that the 
quaUty of imperfection appeals to the human 
mind as long as it is itself in a state of imper- 
fection, but once having passed on to another 
phase of existence, with a soul fully developed 
by the lessons learned through life's imper- 
fections, then delight and joy and peace will 
be the portion of the soul attuned to perfec- 
tion. It will be such a state of exaltation as 
that described by Shelley in the climax of 
' * Prometheus Unbound . ' ' 

Thus his musings over the early painters 
lead the poet into political prophecy and 
philosophical ruminations, both of which, in 
spite of his praise of imperfection, bring the 
conclusion that perfection is best. 

Neither could the fame of Nicolo the Pisan 
be materially enhanced by Browning's calling 
him '*liis sculptor." Vasari's enthusiasm for 
him IS unbounded, so much so in fact, that he 
attributes to this sculptor numerous buildings 
which the ruthless editors of later days say 
there is no proof that he designed. 

His inspiration came direct from ancient 



226 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Greek sculpture, if Vasari is to be believed; 
thus he brought in one of the important 
elements of the Renaissance, the return to 
ancient models, Giotto and Cimabue having 
inaugurated the ** return to nature." 

"Among the many spoils of marbles," 
Vasari relates, *' brought by the armaments 
of Pisa to their city, were several antique 
sarcophagi, now in the Campo Santo of that 
town. One of these, on which the Chase of 
Meleager and the Calvdonian boar was cut 
with great truth and beauty, surpassed all 
the others; the nude as well as draped figures, 
being perfect in design, and executed with 
great skill. This sarcophagus, having been 
placed for its beauty by the Pisans in that 
fa9ade of the Cathedral which is opposite to 
San Rocco, and beside the principal door of 
that front, was used as a tomb for the mother 
of the Countess Matilda. Nicolo was at- 
tracted bv the excellence of this work, in 
which he greatly delighted, and which he 
studied dilio:entlv, with the manv other valu- 
able sculptures of the relics around him, 
imitating the admirable manner of these 
works with so much success that no long 
time had elapsed before he was esteemed 
the best sculptor of his time." 

Nicolo's work for Florence was uot ex- 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 227 

tensive; about all that the poet could have 
called to mind as surely his is the church of 
Santa Trinita; but doubtless his thoughts 
wandered to other famous works of his, like 
the Pulpits, at Pisa and Sienna, and the 
Area di San Domenico at Bologna. 

His date is really precedent to that of 
Giotto, so that he may truly be considered to 
have struck the death-blow to the stiff By- 
zantine art that flourished before. His in- 
fluence was felt not only in Italy but as some 
scholars have shown it even penetrated 
into the remote forests of Germany. 

Ghiberti is famous among other things for 
having won the commission for the doors for 
the church of San Giovanni in Florence. All 
the artists in Italy were invited to compete 
by submitting an example of their skill to the 
Guild of the merchants and the Signoria of 
Florence. Let Vasari again tell the story by 
virtue of his nearness to the times. "A great 
concourse of artists assembled in Florence. 
Each of these artists received a sum of money, 
and it was commanded that within a year 
each should produce a story in bronze as a 
specimen of his powers, all to be of the same 
size which was that of one of the compart- 
ments of the first door. The subject was 
chosen by the consuls, and was the sacrifice 



22S BROWNING'S ITALY 

of Isaac by his father Abraham, that being 
selected as presenting sufficient opportunity 
for the artists to display their mastery over 
the difficulties of their art, this story com- 
prising landscape with human figures, nude 
and clothed, as well as those of animals; 
the foremost of these figures were to be in 
full relief, the second in half-relief, and the 
third in low relief. The candidates for this 
work were Filippo di Ser Brunellesco, Donato, 
and Lorenzo di Bartoluccio, who were Floren- 
tines, with Jacopo della Quercia of Sienna: 
Nicolo d'Arezzo, his disciple; Francesco di 
Valdambrina, and Simone da Colle, called 
Simon of the bronzes/ All these masters 
made promise before the consuls that they 
would deliver each his specimen completed 
at the prescribed time, and all set themselves 
to work with the utmost care and study, 
putting forth all their strength, and calling 
all their knowledge to aid, in the hope of 
surpassing one another. They kept their 
labors meanwhile entirely secret, one from 
the other, that they might not copy each 
others plans. Lorenzo, alone, who had Bar- 
toluccio to guide him, which last suffered him 
to shrink before no amount of labor, but com- 
pelled him to make various models before 

1 It has been since found that there were other competing artists. 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 229 

he resolved on adopting any one of them, 
Lorenzo only, I say, permitted all the citizens 
to see his work, inviting them or any stranger 
who might be passing and had acquaintance 
with the art, to say what they thought on the 
subject; and these various opinions were so 
useful to the artist, that he produced a model 
which was admirably executed and without 
any defect whatever. He then made the 
ultimate preparations, cast the work in bronze, 
and found it succeed to admiration. When 
Lorenzo, assisted by Bartoluccio, his father, 
completed and polished the whole with such 
love and patience, that no work could be 
executed with more care, or finished with 
greater delicacy." As a result of all this 
*'The story executed by Lorenzo only, which 
is still to be seen in the Hall of Audience, 
belonging to the Guild of the Merchants, was 
perfect in all its parts. The whole work was 
admirably designed and very finely composed : 
the figures, graceful, elegant and in beautiful 
attitudes and all was finished with so much 
care and so much perfection, that the work 
seemed not to have been cast and polished 
with instruments of iron, but to have been 
blown by the breath." 

Again to Ghiberti is accorded a chorus of 
praise by modern critics. Among these no 



230 BROWNING'S ITALY 

more powerful note is sounded than that by 
Symonds who says that '*he came into the 
world to create a new and inimitable style 
of hybrid beauty. Though so passionate an 
admirer of the Greeks that he reckoned time 
by Olympiads, he remained, nevertheless, 
unaffectedly natural and in a true sense 
Christian. Ghiberti's people of the bronze 
gates are so long and delicate and graceful, 
with a certain character of exquisiteness that 
they appear to belong to a Praxitelian rather 
than to a Phidian epoch — to a second rather 
than to a first phase of evolution. They are 
marvelously precocious, pressing forward in 
advance of their time. They are pictorial 
rather than sculptural, but are so beautiful 
and so different from the works of other men 
that Ghiberti will always remain to us as one 
of the four or five most individual sculptors of 
the Renaissance, and as one of the supreme 
masters of pictorial composition affording a 
precedent even to Raphael." 

Besides this masterpiece Florence has 
several tombs designed by him, among them 
that of Ludovico degli Obizzi, Captain of 
the Florentine army, in Santa Croce, and 
most important the tomb of S. Zanobius, 
bishop and patron saint of Florence, in the 
Duomo. 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 231 

Ghirlandajo, to whom Browning again 
refers by his family name Bigordi, properly 
belongs to the Pre-Raphaelite period, and is 
regarded by Symonds as the most complete 
representative of the coming splendor of the 
full Renaissance. He was a naturalist of a 
robust order, furnishing a fine contrast to 
another of the distinguished Pre-Raphaelites, 
Sandro Botticelli, with his subtle idealism 
and delicate ornamentation. 

The most sympathetic criticism of his 
work to be found is in the notes to the 
Blashfield and Hopkins' edition of Vasari's 
Lives, for Symonds, while acknowledging his 
greatness, is too much dazzled by the efful- 
gence of the ** great masters," near at hand, 
to see him, it seems to us, in his true propor- 
tions. The same may be said of Symond's 
attitude toward Botticelli. 

'*In his work there is none of the manner- 
ism of Botticelli, only a trace of the classicism 
of Filippino and not a sign of the exaggerated 
movement of Signorelli. His figures do not 
mince nor swagger, they take the pose of 
well-bred people sitting for their portraits, 
and stand naturally and quietly on either side 
of his compositions, looking out at the spec- 
tator or at each other, not paying much atten- 
tion to the drama or the miracle in which 



232 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Ghirlandajo, himself takes but little interest. 
Costume and background are treated in the 
same sober spirit. Goldsmith as he was, he 
did not fill his pictures with dainty details 
like Botticelli, who devised strange settings 
for jewels and patterns for brocades and 
curiously intricate headgear: costume and 
background are accessories, and are sub- 
ordinated to the general effect. He does not 
lack invention, and can introduce charming 
episodes when he pleases, but the contempo- 
rary Florentines, standing with hand on hip 
or folded arms, are apt to form the strongest 
portion of the composition. His drawing is 
very firm and frank, and he was the best all- 
round draughtsman that had appeared up 
to his time; the color in his frescos tends to 
bricky reds and ochers, in his tempera to 
strong and brilliant tones, which are occa- 
sionally even gaudy. He shows his subtlety 
in characterization, in differentiation of feature, 
in seizing the personality of each model, in 
sympathetic comprehension of widely differ- 
ing types of men." 

Frescos by Ghirlandajo abound in Flor- 
ence in the churches of Santa Maria Novella, 
Santa Trinita and the Ognissanti, some of them 
in a good state of preservation and some of 
them much faded. His finest frescos are 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 233 

perhaps those illustrating the history of St. 
Francis in Santa Trinita, though the scenes 
from the lives of the Virgin and St. John the 
Baptist in Santa Maria Novella are extremely 
interesting because they contain many por- 
traits of members of distinguished Florentine 
families. 

In the following stanzas, the poet men- 
tions a number of painters at whose pictures 
in Florence we must take glimpses with him. 
Some of the artists he evidently feels are 
too near greatness for him to trouble their 
ghosts with his importunities to lend him 
a helping hand to find stray specimens of 
their work. 

"Their ghosts still stand, as I said before. 

Watching each fresco flaked and rasped, 
Blocked up, knocked out, or whitewashed o*er: 

— No getting again what the church has grasped! 
The works on the wall must take their chance; 

'Works never conceded to England's thick clime!* 
(I hope they prefer their inheritance 

Of a bucketful of Italian quick-lime.) 

"When they go at length, with such a shaking 

Of heads o'er the old delusion, sadly 
Each master his way through the black streets taking. 

Where many a lost work breathes though badly — 
Why don't they bethink them of who has merited ? 

Why not reveal, while their pictures dree 



234 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Such doom, how a captive might be out-ferreted? 
Why is it they never remember me ? 

"Not that I expect the great Bigordi, 

Nor Sandro to hear me, chivalric, bellicose; 
Nor the wronged Lippino; and not a word I 

Say of a scrap of Fra Angelico's: 
But are you too fine, Taddeo Gaddi, 

To grant me a taste of your intonaco, 
Some Jerome that seeks the heaven with a sad eye? 

Not a churlish saint, Lorenzo Monaco? 

"Could not the ghost with the close red cap, 

My Pollajolo, the twice a craftsman. 
Save me the sample, give me the hap. 

Of a muscular Christ that shows the draughtsman ? 
No virgin by him the somewhat petty 

Of finical touch and tempera crumbly — 
Could not Alesso Baldovinetti 

Contribute so much, I ask him humbly ? 

" Margheritone of Arezzo, 

With the grave-clothes garb and swadling barret 
(Why purse up mouth and beak in a pet so. 

You bald old saturnine poll-clawed parrot?) 
Not a poor glimmering Crucifixion, 

Where in the foreground kneels the donor? 
If such remain, as is my conviction. 

The hoarding it does you but httle honor. 

There are many of Botticelli's most famous 
pictures in the galleries in Florence, for 
example, the wonderful *' Coronation of the 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 2S5 

Virgin" in the Academy of Fine Arts, the 
"Birth of Venus," and "Primevera," in 
the Ufizzi, or there is the fresco of St. 
Augustine in the Ognissanti. Any or all of 
these the poet might have had in mind, and 
it is not surprising that he felt some timidity 
at approaching the ghost of any one so widely 
discussed as Botticelli. It is quite true as 
some one has said that he is the most easily 
understood of any of the early painters to-day ; 
we might add that only a critic of the era of 
Maeterlinck could fully appreciate his quali- 
ties. Symonds does not, but the Vasari 
editors have summed up his characteristics 
in an outburst of appreciation which all 
lovers of Botticelli must approve. 

*'No one has created so intensely personal a 
type: the very name of Botticelli calls up to 
one's mental vision the long, thin face; the 
querulous mouth with its over ripe lips; the 
prominent chin sometimes a little to one side; 
the nose, thin at the root and full, often almost 
swollen at the nostrils; the heavy tresses of 
ocher-colored hair, with the frequent touches 
of gilding; the lank limbs and the delicately 
undulating outline of the lithe body, under 
its fantastically embroidered or semi-trans- 
parent vesture. This strange type charms 
us by its introspective quality, its mournful 



236 BROWNING'S ITALY 

ardor, its fragility, even by its morbidness, 
and it so charmed the painter that he repro- 
duced it continually and saw it or certain dis- 
tinctive features of it in every human creature 
that he painted. Like all the artists of his 
time his paganism was somewhat timid and 
ascetic, his Christianity somewhat paganized 
and eclectic, but to this fusion of the waning 
ideals common to all the workers of his age, 
he added something of his own — a fantas- 
tic elfin quality as impossible to define as it 
is to resist. His Madonnas, his goddesses, 
his saints have a touch of the sprite or the 
Undine in them. Saint Augustine in his 
study is a Doctor Faustus who has known 
forbidden love; his fantastic people of the 
*Primevera' have danced in the mystic 
ring. We feel in his painted folk and his 
attitude toward them a subtle discord that is 
at once poignant and alluring, the crowned 
Madonna dreams somewhat dejectedly in the 
midst of her glories, and seems rather the 
mother of Seven Sorrows than a triumphant 
Queen; the Venus, sailing over the flower- 
strewn sea is no radiant goddess, but an 
anaemic, nervous, medieval prude longing 
for her mantle; the graces who accompany 
the bride in the Lemni frescos are highly 
strung, self-conscious girls, who have grown 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 237 

up in the shadow of the cloister, but to them 
all Botticelli has lent the same subtle, sug- 
gestive charm." 

Filippino, too, inspires awe in the poet as 
he well may with his extraordinary frescos 
in the Santa Maria Novella, which depict 
many sacred legends with amazing if some- 
what exaggerated dramatic power; or there 
are the impressive examples of his work in 
his earlier manner in the Brancacci chapel 
of the Carmine; the martyrdom of St. Peter 
and St. Paul, and St. Paul before the Pro- 
consul — pictures that rival Masaccio's won- 
derful frescos in the same chapel. Speaking 
of Filippino's place in art, the Vasari edi- 
tors say of him, **He remains the third of 
the great Florentine trio of Middle Renais- 
sance painters; but while Ghirlandajo and 
Botticelli were always intensely personal and 
always developed along the same lines, 
Filippino seems to be three different men at 
three different times: first the painter of St. 
Bernard, equaling Botticelli in grace and 
surpassing him in a certain fervor of feeling, 
secondly, the painter of the Brancacci fres- 
cos, imitating Masaccio, passing beyond 
him in scientific acquirement, but falling far 
behind his grand style and last of all, the 
painter of the cycle of St. Thomas, leaving 



238 BRO^^:MXG'S ITALY 

behind him his quattro cento charm, still 
retaining some of his quattro cento awkward- 
ness, but attaining dramatic composition and 
becoming a precursor of Raphael.*' 

It seems a little curious that while Brown- 
ing was calling up so many of these old 
artists, that he should have omitted to mentioa- 
Masaccio. who is by general consent con- 
sidered one of the greatest — the link indeed 
between Giotto and Raphael. Lafenestre, 
the art critic, savs of him that *'he deter- 
mines anew the destiny of painting by setting 
it again, but this time strengthened by a 
perfected technique in the broad straight 
path which Giotto had opened. In tech- 
nique he added to art a fuller comprehension 
of perspective, especially of aerial perspec- 
tive, the differences in the planes of figures 
in the same composition. Simplicity and 
style were both his to such an extent that the 
Chapel of the Brancacci became a school 
room to the masters of the fifteenth centurv. 
His color was agreeable, gray and atmos- 
pheric, his drawing direct and simple." 

Another critic adds to this ''He was at 
once an idealist and a realist, ha\^ng the 
merit, not of beino: the onlv one to studv 
familiar realitv, but of understandino: better 
than any of his predecessors the conditions 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 239 

in virtue of which reaHty becomes worthy of 
art." 

We may get over the difficulty by imagin- 
ing that Masaccio was one of those painters 
between Ghiberti and Ghirlandajo who had 
not ** missed" his *' critic meed." 

The poet also stands in some awe of Fra 
Angelico, who is a figure dwelling apart in 
the art of the time. Intensely religious by 
nature, he thought it a sin to paint the nude 
human figure, consequently his pictures are 
full of beings always decorously draped, 
and with almost naively angelical counte- 
nances. There is, however, such great charm 
in his work and such a wonderful spiritual 
uplift that, with few exceptions, he is the 
beloved of the critics as well as of the people 
of his own times and the people of to-day. 
His place in the evolution of art is so difficult 
to define that Symonds says of him, he is like 
a placid and beautiful lake off from the shore 
of the great river of art that flows from Giotto 
to Raphael. There are many, indeed most 
of his pictures are in the galleries in Florence, 
for the poet to take his fill of. We choose 
for illustration of his style, not a fresco, but 
an easel picture, which is regarded by some 
as his finest work. Lord Lindsay says of 
this picture in his ''Christian Art." 



240 BROWNING'S ITALY 

'*The Madonna crossing her arms meekly 
on her bosom and bending in humble awe 
to receive the crown of heaven, is very lovely, 
— the Saviour is perhaps a shade less excel- 
lent: the angels are admirable and many of 
the assistant saints full of grace and dignity, 
but the characteristic of the picture is the 
flood of radiance and glory diffused over it, 
the brightest colors — gold, azure, pink, red, 
yellow, pure, and unmixed, yet harmonizing 
and blending, like a rich burst of wind-music, 
in a manner incommunicable in recital — 
distinct and yet soft, as if the whole scene 
were mirrored in the sea of glass that burns 
before the throne." 

The remaining painters whom Browning 
dares to ask for something are of a distinctly 
inferior order of genius. Taddeo Gaddi is 
chiefly famous as the favorite pupil of Giotto, 
whom he imitates but does not equal in any 
way, and, furthermore, time has destroyed 
his frescos and diminished his title to fame 
by showing him not to be the architect of the 
Ponta Vecchio, the Ponta Santa Trinita, and 
not to have helped in the Campanile. 

The Poet, himself, very well describes the 
qualities of Pollajolo. The two brothers — 
Antonio and Pietro, belonged to the extremely 
realistic type, and as such had their place in 



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iu/m:!^ 



'IM')\( 1 



Coronation of the Virgin. 



Fra Angelica . 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 241 

the development of art. Critics have decided 
they were neither of them great artists. But, 
in the words of one of these, *'The brothers, 
especially Antonio, were important contribu- 
tors to the Renaissance movement in the 
direction of anatomical study." Antonio is 
accused by Perkins of absence of imagination 
and affectation of originality, by Symonds of 
almost brutal energy and bizarre realism. 
Muntz declares that in his pictures of St. 
Sebastian, every one of the qualities which 
make up the Renaissance harmony, rhythm, 
beauty is outrageously violated. Finally, 
Lafenestre says he is *' frank even to brutality, 
vigorous even to ferocity, yet his strange art 
impresses by its virility." 

Antonio like many of the artists of the time 
was a trained goldsmith, and with him the 
training developed a taste for anatomy, while 
in an artist of Botticelli's temperament it 
developed a taste for delicate ornamentation. 
In the former instance it resulted in a pre- 
deliction for exaggerated and coarse forms; 
such artists were interested chiefly in con- 
struction. Over-developed muscles, strained 
tendons and violent action, recorded with 
brutal truth were therefore the distinguishing 
characteristics of their art. 

Pictures by these and also the remaining 



242 BROWNING'S ITALY 

minor lights were probably examined by 
Browning in Florence, though his memory 
here may have dwelt upon two in his own 
possession which he describes in these stanzas. 

Of these minor lights, perhaps the most 
interest attaches to Margheritone, because he 
was among the first to show some departure 
from the Byzantine manner. Crucifix paint- 
ing was his especial work. His sour expres- 
sion refers to mixed disdain and despair 
aroused in him by Giotto's innovations, 
which made him take to his death-bed in 
vexation. 

One other painter of true distinction is 
mentioned in the poem, Orcagna. 

"This time we'll shoot better game and bag 'em hot — 

No mere display at the stone of Dante, 
But a kind of sober Witanagemot 

(Ex.: 'Casa Guidi,' quod videas ante) 
Shall ponder, once Freedom restored to Florence, 

How Art may return that departed with her. 
Go, hated house, go each trace of the Loraine's 

And bring us the days of Orgagna hither!" 

There are wonderful frescos of his in the 
Santa Maria Novella, among them the Inferno 
and Paradise suggested by Dante. The 
beauty and variety in the expressions of his 
faces is so noticeable a feature of his work 
that one wonders why Symonds says it can 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 243 

only be discovered after long study. He be- 
came more impressed with their beauty after 
examining some tracings, taken chiefly by 
the Right Hon. A. H. Layard, of these and 
other frescos of the early masters. He de- 
clares that by the selection of simple form in 
outline is demonstrated **not only the grand 
composition of these religious paintings, but 
also the incomparable loveliness of their types. 
How great they were as draughtsmen, how 
imaginative was the beauty of their con- 
ception, can be best appreciated by thus 
artificially separating their design from their 
coloring. The semblance of archaism dis- 
appears, and leaves a vision of pure beauty, 
delicate and spiritual." 

On the whole it will be seen, that the souls 
of these early painters have been far from 
wronged so terribly as Browning implies. 
All the greatest art students and critics have 
given them a meed of praise far more en- 
thusiastic than any note of praise struck in 
the poem. Yet the poet's mood is under- 
standable. He was overwhelmed by the ap- 
pearance of neglect, the whitewashings, the 
removals, the paintings over, the fadings 
out that many of these early pictures have 
suffered, not at the hands of the art-lovers of 
later days, but at the hands of the unappre- 



244 BROWNING'S ITALY 

ciative who were either too near or too blind 
or too bigoted to realize their value. 

While this poem may stand for the point 
of view of a modern man looking back at the 
early art, in the remaining poems the reader 
is introduced to the painters themselves, and 
made to see in a remarkable manner the 
peculiar individuality of each artist described. 

The poet has chosen to portray three types 
in this way. Fra Lippo Lippi, who stands 
for the break into realism and secularism, 
marking one phase of the developing Renais- 
sance; '* Andrea del Sarto," who stands for 
the calm after the flood-tide of development 
had been reached; and ''Pictor Ignotus," 
who perhaps stands for a mood which means 
the outflow of the tide, the decay of the 
creative impulse through the development of 
too great self -consciousness. 

In "Fra Lippo Lippi," the poet has por- 
trayed one scene in his life, and through the 
talk of the painter has revealed what manner 
of man he was according to Vasari's account 
of him. 

This painter-poet was born in Florence, 
1406, in a by-street, called Ardiglione, be- 
hind the convent of the Carmelites. His 
mother died shortly after his birth and his 
father two years later so that he was left in 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART M5 

the care of his father's sister, Mona Lapaccia. 
She managed to look out for him until his 
eighth year, when she placed him with the 
Carmelites. 

He proved a very poor scholar as far as 
learning was concerned, but showed such a 
remarkable talent for drawing that the prior 
very sensibly decided to give him every oppor- 
tunity to learn. "What else could be done 
with a little chap who in place of studying 
never did anything but daub his books and 
those of the other boys with caricatures ? 
The poet enlivens this fact by making Fra 
Lippo add arms and legs to the notes in his 
music books. 

He went daily into the chapel of the Car- 
mine, which had recently been painted with 
very beautiful frescos by Masaccio, and 
there he continually practised along with the 
other youths who were always studying them, 
so that when still a child he did some really 
marvelous work. He soon came to paint 
pictures after the style of Masaccio so well 
that many affirmed that the spirit of Masaccio 
had entered into him. At seventeen he de- 
cided to leave the convent and become a 
painter, through not ceasing to be a friar. 

There is a story to the effect that he was 
once taken captive by a Moorish galley and 



246 BROWNING'S ITALY 

carried off to Barbary, but was freed by his 
master upon his drawing a wonderful portrait 
of the Moor, with a piece of charcoal which 
he took from the fire. He had the good for- 
tune to secure the friendship and patronage 
of Cosimo de' Medici. A story told in con- 
nection with his painting for Cosimo is made 
the central event of the poem. 

"It is said that Fra Lippo Lippi was much 
addicted to the pleasures of sense, insomuch 
that he would give all he possessed to secure 
the gratification of whatever inclination might 
at the moment be predominant, but if he could 
by no means accomplish his wishes, he would 
then depict the object which had attracted 
his attention. It was known that, while 
occupied in the pursuit of his pleasures, the 
works undertaken by him received little or 
none of his attention; for which reason 
Cosimo de' Medici wishing him to execute 
a work in his own palace, shut him up that 
he might not waste his time in running about, 
but having endured this confinement for two 
days, he then made ropes with the sheets of 
his bed, which he cut to pieces for that pur- 
pose, and so having let himself down from 
the window, escaped, and for several days 
gave himself up to his amusements. When 
Cosimo found that the painter had dis- 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 247 

appeared he caused him to be sought, and 
Fra Lippo at last returned to work, but from 
that time forth Cosimo gave him Hberty to 
go in and out at his pleasure, repenting greatly 
of having shut him up, when he considered 
the danger that Lippo had run by his folly 
in descending from the window; and ever 
afterwards laboring to keep him to his work 
by kindness only, he was by this means much 
more promptly and effectually served by the 
painter and was wont to say that excellencies 
of rare genius were as forms of light and not 
beasts of burden." 

The Coronation of the Virgin, described 
at the end of the poem, was according to 
Vasari, the picture which made Lippo Lippi 
known to Cosimo de' Medici, but it has been 
shown on other authority that this picture 
was executed long after Cosimo first knew 
Lippo Lippi, so Browning is justified in 
imagining it a kind of a penance picture for 
the escapade described. It has been said that 
the woman with the children in the foreground 
in this picture is either Spinetta or Lucrezia 
Buti, but at the time they were both small 
children. 

One of these, Lucrezia, was the beautiful 
girl with whom Lippo fell in love at the 
Convent of Santa Margherita in Prato. He 



248 BROWNING'S ITALY 

asked the nuns to allow him to use her for the 
model of the Virgin in the picture he was 
painting for them for the high altar. They 
consented and the result was that he carried 
her off from the convent. The nuns felt 
deeply disgraced and the father w^as out- 
raged, but Lucrezia could not be prevailed 
upon to return. She became the mother of 
the famous painter Filippino Lippi, and it is 
said that Lippo and Lucrezia were afterwards 
granted a dispensation of marriage from the 
Pope. It is evidently to her that Lippo 
refers as ''a sweet angelic slip of a thing" in 
the poem. 

All these events are woven into the poem, 
and life-likeness is given to the scene by its 
dramatic form and the introduction of the 
guard and of the girls singing the fascinating 
little flower songs, — the Stornelli, — which 
the Italians at that time used to improvise 
with the greatest ease. The criticism which 
Browning puts into the mouths of the monks, 
who objected to his eminently human por- 
traitures of sacred subjects does not seem to 
be justified by Vasari's accounts of the way 
in which his work was received. Symonds, 
among modern critics, comes the nearest to 
voicing their objections when he says, ** Bound 
down to sacred subjects, he was too apt to 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 249 

make angels out of street urchins and to 
paint the portraits of peasant-loves for Virgins. 
His delicate sense of natural beauty gave 
peculiar charm to this false treatment of 
religious themes. Nothing, for example, can 
be more attractive than the rows of angels 
bearing lilies in his 'Coronation of the 
Virgin ; ' and yet, when we regard them closely, 
we find that they have no celestial quality of 
form or feature." 

It is this very fact of an intense quality of 
human sympathy that commends him to 
others and makes him a most important 
factor in the development of art. 

Lafenestre speaks of the warm expansion 
of sympathy with which he brought the 
human type into art, in exchange for the con- 
ventional type which had been called divine, 
making Madonna a real mother of a real 
baby, and giving to sacred personages, with- 
out scruple and without coarseness, the fea- 
tures of living men and women. In the midst 
of a grave severe school he sounds a joyous 
note, which is the first utterance of modern 
painting. 

"He often sacrifices precision to vivacity 
and variety, caring more about expression 
than pure form and falling frequently into a 
mannerism shown in his flattened and widened 



250 BROWNING'S ITALY 

skulls and broad faces, but conquering his 
audience of the fifteenth as of the nineteenth 
century by his unaffected sincerity and his 
joyous realism. As he had humanized Ma- 
donna he domesticated art, reducing the 
altar piece to the genre picture." 

How well the poet has shown his qualities 
as an artist in conjunction with his qualities 
as a man the poem itself can best illustrate: 

FRA LIPPO LIPPI 

I am poor brother Lippo, by your leave! 

You need not clap your torches to my face. 

Zooks, what's to blame? you think you see a monk! 

What, 'tis past midnight, and you go the rounds. 

And here you catch me at an alley's end 

Where sportive ladies leave their doors ajar? 

The Carmine's my cloister: hunt it up, 

Do, — harry out, if you must show your zeal, 

Whatever rat, there, haps on his wrong hole, 

And nip each softling of a wee white mouse, 

Wekcy weke, that's crept to keep him company. 

Aha, you know your betters! Then, you'll take 

Your hand away that's fiddhng on my throat. 

And please to know me likewise. Who am I? 

Why, one, sir, who is lodging with a friend 

Three streets off — he's a certain . . . how d' ye call ? 

Master — a . . . Cosimo of the Medici, 

I' the house that caps the corner. Boh! you were best! 

Remember and tell me, the day you're hanged, 

How you affected such a gullet 's-gripe! 

But you, sir, it concerns you that your knaves 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 251 

Pick up a manner nor discredit you: 

Zooks, are we pilchards, that they sweep the streets 

And count fair prize what comes into their net? 

He's Judas to a tittle, that man is! 

Just such a face! Why, sir, you make amends. 

Lord, I'm not angry! Bid your hangdogs go 

Drink out this quarter-florin to the health 

Of the munificent House that harbors me 

(And many more beside, lads! more beside!) 

And all's come square again. I'd like his face — 

His, elbowing on his comrade in the door 

With the pike and lantern, — for the slave that holds 

John Baptist's head a-dangle by the hair 

With one hand ("Look you, now," as who should say) 

And his weapon in the other, yet unwiped! 

It's not your chance to have a bit of chalk, 

A wood-coal or the like? or you should see! 

Yes, I'm the painter, since you style me so. 

What, brother Lippo's doings, up and down. 

You know them and they take you ? like enough! 

I saw the proper twinkle in your eye — 

'Tell you, I liked your looks at very first. 

Let's sit and set things straight now, hip to haunch. 

Here's spring come, and the nights one makes up bands 

To roam the town and sing out carnival, 

And I've been three weeks shut within my mew, 

A-painting for the great man, saints and saints 

And saints again. I could not paint all night — 

Ouf ! I leaned out of window for fresh air. 

There came a hurry of feet and little feet, 

A sweep of lute-strings, laughs, and whifts of song, — 

Flower o' the broom, 

Take away love, and our earth is a tomb! 

Flower o' the quince^ 



252 BROWNING'S ITALY 

/ let Lisa go^ and what good in life since? 

Flower o' the thyme — and so on. Round they went. 

Scarce had they turned the comer when a titter 

Like the skipping of rabbits by moonhght, — three slim 

shapes, 
And a face that looked up . . . zooks, sir, flesh and blood, 
That's all I'm made of! Into shreds it went, 
Curtain and counterpane and coverlet. 
All the bed-furniture — a dozen knots, 
There was a ladder! Down I let myself. 
Hands and feet, scrambling somehow, and so dropped. 
And after them. I came up with the fun 
Hard by Saint Laurence, hail fellow, well met, — 
Flower o' the rose. 

If Fve been merry, what matter who knows f 
And so as I was stealing back again 
To get to bed and have a bit of sleep 
Ere I rise up to-morrow and go work 
On Jerome knocking at his poor old breast 
With his great round stone to subdue the flesh. 
You snap me of the sudden. Ah, I see! 
Though your eye twinkles still, you shake your head — 
Mine's shaved — a monk, you say — the sting's in that! 
If Master Cosimo announced himself. 
Mum's the word naturally; but a monk! 
Come, what am I a beast for.^ tell us, now! 
I was a baby when my mother died 
And father died and left me in the street. 
I starved there, God knows how, a year or two 
On fig-skins, melon-parings, rinds and shucks. 
Refuse and rubbish. One fine frosty day. 
My stomach being empty as your hat, 
The wind doubled me up and down I went. 
Old Aunt Lapaccia trussed me with one hand, 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 253 

(Its fellow was a stinger as I knew) 

And so along the wall, over the bridge, 

By the straight cut to the convent. Six words there. 

While I stood munching my first bread that month: 

"So, boy, you're minded," quoth the good fat father, 

Wiping his own mouth, 'twas refection-time, — 

"To quit this very miserable world? 

Will you renounce " . . . "the mouthful of bread ?" thought I; 

By no means! Brief, they made a monk of me; 

I did renounce the world, its pride and greed. 

Palace, farm, villa, shop, and banking-house, 

Trash, such as these poor devils of Medici 

Have given their hearts to — all at eight years old. 

Well, sir, I found in time, you may be sure, 

'Twas not for nothing — the good bellyful, 

The warm serge and the rope that goes all round. 

And day-long blessed idleness beside! 

"Let's see what the urchin's fit for" — that came next. 

Not overmuch their way, I must confess. 

Such a to-do! They tried me with their books; 

Lord, they'd have taught me Latin in pure waste! 

Flower o' the clove. 

All the Latin I construe is "'amo^ I love! 

But, mind you, when a boy starves in the streets 

Eight years together, as my fortune was, 

Watching folk's faces to know who will fling 

The bit of half -stripped grape-bunch he desires. 

And who will curse or kick him for his pains, — 

Which gentleman processional and fine. 

Holding a candle to the Sacrament, 

Will wink and let him hft a plate and catch 

The droppings of the wax to sell again. 

Or holla for the Eight and have him whipped, — 

How say I ? — nay, which dog bites, which lets drop 



254 BROWNING'S ITALY 

His bone from the heap of offal in the street, — 

Why, soul and sense of him grow sharp alike, 

He learns the look of things, and none the less 

For admonition from the hunger-pinch. 

I had a store of such remarks, be sure, 

Which, after I found leisure, turned to use. 

I drew men's faces on my copy-books, 

Scrawled them within the antiphonary's marge. 

Joined legs and arms to the long music-notes. 

Found eyes and nose and chin for A's and B's, 

And made a string of pictures of the world 

Betwixt the ins and outs of verb and noun. 

On the wall, the bench, the door. The monks looked black. 

"Nay," quoth the Prior, "turn him out, d'ye say? 

In no wise. Lose a crow and catch a lark. 

What if at last we get our man of parts. 

We Carmelites, like those Camaldolese 

And Preaching Friars, to do our church up fine 

And put the front on it that ought to be!" 

And hereupon he bade me daub away. 

Thank you! my head being crammed, the walls a blank, 

Never was such prompt disemburdening 

First, every sort of monk, the black and white, 

I drew them, fat and lean: then, folk at church. 

From good old gossips waiting to confess 

Their cribs of barrel-droppings, candle-ends, — 

To the breathless fellow at the altar-foot, 

Fresh from his murder, safe and sitting there 

With the little children round him in a row 

Of admiration, half for his beard and half 

For that white anger of his victim's son 

Shaking a fist at him with one fierce arm. 

Signing himself with the other because of Christ 

(Whose sad face on the cross sees only this 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 255 

After the passion of a thousand years) 

Till some poor girl, her apron o'er her head, 

(Which the intense eyes looked through) came at eve 

On tiptoe, said a word, dropped in a loaf, 

Her pair of earrings and a bunch of flowers 

(The brute took growling), prayed, and so was gone. 

I painted all, then cried "'Tis ask and have; 

Choose, for more's ready!" — laid the ladder flat. 

And showed my covered bit of cloister-wall. 

The monks closed in a circle and praised loud 

Till checked, taught what to see and not to see, 

Being simple bodies, — "That's the very man! 

Look at the boy who stoops to pat the dog! 

That woman's like the Prior's niece who comes 

To care about his asthma: it's the life!" 

But there my triumph's straw-fire flared and funked; 

Their betters took their turn to see and say: 

The Prior and the learned pulled a face 

And stopped all that in no time. "How.'^ what's here? 

Quite from the mark of painting, bless us all! 

Faces, arms, legs, and bodies like the true 

As much as pea and pea! it's devil's-game! 

Your business is not to catch men with show. 

With homage to the perishable clay. 

But lift them over it, ignore it all. 

Make them forget there's such a thing as flesh. 

Your business is to paint the souls of men — 

Man's soul, and it's a fire, smoke . . . no, it's not . . . 

It's vapor done up like a new-born babe — 

(In that shape when you die it leaves your mouth) 

It's . . . well, what matters talking, it's the soul! 

Give us no more of body than shows soul! 

Here's Giotto, with his Saint a-praising God, 

That sets us praising, — why not stop with him ? 



256 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Why put all thoughts of praise out of our head 

With wonder at lines, colors, and what not? 

Paint the soul, never mind the legs and arms! 

Rub all out, try at it a second time. 

Oh, that white smallish female with the breasts. 

She's just my niece . . . Herodias, I would say, — 

Who went and danced and got men's heads cut off! 

Have it all out!" Now, is this sense, I ask? 

A fine way to paint soul, by painting body 

So ill, the eye can't stop there, must go further 

And can't fare worse! Thus, yellow does for white 

When what you put for yellow's simply black. 

And any sort of meaning looks intense 

When all beside itself means and looks naught. 

Why can't a painter lift each foot in turn. 

Left foot and right foot, go a double step. 

Make his flesh liker and his soul more like. 

Both in their order ? Take the prettiest face. 

The Prior's niece . . . patron-saint — is it so pretty 

You can't discover if it means hope, fear, 

Sorrow or joy ? won't beauty go with these ? 

Suppose I've made her eyes all right and blue. 

Can't I take breath and try to add life's flash. 

And then add soul and heighten them three-fold? 

Or say there's beauty with no soul at all — 

(I never saw it — put the case the same — ) 

If you get simple beauty and naught else. 

You get about the best thing God invents: 

That's somewhat: and you'll find the soul you have missed. 

Within yourself, when you return him thanks. 

"Rub all out!" Well, well, there's my hfe, in short, 

And so the thing has gone on ever since. 

I'm grown a man no doubt, I've broken bounds: 

You should not take a fellow eight years old 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 257 

And make him swear to never kiss the girls. 

I'm my own master, paint now as I please — 

Having a friend, you see, in the Corner-house! 

Lord, it's fast holding by the rings in front — 

Those great rings serve more purposes than just 

To plant a flag in, or tie up a horse! 

And yet the old schooling sticks, the old grave eyes 

Are peeping o'er my shoulder as I work. 

The heads shake still — "It's art's decline, my son! 

You're not of the true painters, great and old; 

Brother Angelico's the man, you'll find; 

Brother Lorenzo stands his single peer: 

Fag on at flesh, you'll never make the third!" 

Flower o' the piney 

You keep your mistr . . , manners, and Fll stick to mine! 

I'm not the third, then: bless us, they must know! 

Don't you think they're the likeliest to know, 

They with their Latin ? So, I swallow my rage, 

Clench my teeth, suck my lips in tight, and paint 

To please them — sometimes do and sometimes don't; 

For, doing most, there's pretty sure to come 

A turn, some warm eve finds me at my saints — 

A laugh, a cry, the business of the world — 

(Flower o' the peach, 

Death for lis all, and his own life for each!) 

And my whole soul revolves, the cup runs over, 

The world and life's too big to pass for a dream. 

And I do these wild things in sheer despite, 

And play the fooleries you catch me at, 

In pure rage! The old mill-horse, out at grass 

After hard years, throws up his stiff heels so. 

Although the miller does not preach to him 

The only good of grass is to make chaff. 

What would men have ? Do they hke grass or no — 



258 BROWNING'S ITALY 

May they or may n*t they ? all I want*s the thing 

Settled forever one way. As it is, 

You tell too many lies and hurt yourself: 

You don't Uke what you only hke too much, 

You do like what, if given you at your word, 

You find abundantly detestable. 

For me, I think I speak as I was taught; 

I always see the garden and God there 

A-making man's wife: and, my lesson learned. 

The value and significance of flesh, 

I can't unlearn ten minutes afterwards. 

You understand me: I'm a beast, I know. 
But see, now — why, I see as certainly 
As that the morning-star's about to shine. 
What will hap some day. We've a youngster here 
Comes to our convent, studies what I do. 
Slouches and stares and lets no atom drop: 
His name is Guidi — he'll not mind the monks — 
They call him Hulking Tom, he lets them talk — 
He picks my practice up — he'll paint apace, 
I hope so — though I never live so long, 
I know what's sure to follow. You be judge! 
You speak no Latin more than I, belike; 
However, you're my man, you've seen the world 

— The beauty and the wonder and the power. 

The shapes of things, their colors, lights and shades. 
Changes, surprises, — and God made it all! 

— For what ? Do you feel thankful, ay or no. 
For this fair town's face, yonder river's line, 
The mountain round it and the sky above. 
Much more the figures of man, woman, child, 
These are the frame to ? What's it all about ? 
To be passed over, despised ? or dwelt upon, 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 259 

Wondered at? oh, this last of course! — you say. 

But why not do as well as say, — paint these 

Just as they are, careless what comes of it? 

God's works — paint anyone, and count it crime 

To let a truth slip. Don't object, "His works 

Are here already; nature is complete: 

Suppose you reproduce her — (which you can*t) 

There's no advantage! You must beat her, then.'* 

For, don't you mark ? we're made so that we love 

First when we see them painted, things we have passed 

Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see; 

And so they are better, painted — better to us. 

Which is the same thing. Art was given for that; 

God uses us to help each other so. 

Lending our minds out. Have you noticed, now. 

Your cullion's hanging face ? A bit of chalk. 

And trust me but you should, though! How much more, 

If I drew higher things with the same truth! 

That were to take the Prior's pulpit-place, 

Interpret God to all of you! Oh, oh. 

It makes me mad to see what men shall do 

And we in our graves! This world's no blot for us, 

Nor blank; it means intensely and means good: 

To find its meaning is my meat and drink. 

"Ay, but you don't so instigate to prayer!" 

Strikes in the Prior: "When your meaning's plain 

It does not say to folk — remember matins. 

Or, mind you fast next Friday!" Why, for this 

What need of art at all ? A skull and bones. 

Two bits of stick nailed crosswise, or what's best, 

A bell to chime the hour with, does as well. 

I painted a Saint Laurence six months since 

At Prato, splashed the fresco in fine style: 

"How looks my painting, now the scaffold's down?'* 



260 BROWNING'S ITALY 

I ask a brother: "Hugely," he returns — 

"Already not one phiz of your three slaves 

Who turn the Deacon off his toasted side, 

But's scratched and prodded to our heart's content, 

The pious people have so eased their own 

With coming to say prayers there in a rage: 

We get on fast to see the bricks beneath. 

Expect another job this time next year, 

For pity and religion grow i' the crowd — 

Your painting serves its purpose!" Hang the fools! 

— That is — you'll not mistake an idle word. 

Spoke in a huff by a poor monk, God wot. 

Tasting the air this spicy night which turns 

The unaccustomed head like Chianti wine! 

Oh, the church knows! don't misreport me, now! 

It's natural a poor monk out of bounds 

Should have his apt word to excuse himself: 

And hearken how I plot to make amends. 

I have bethought me, I shall paint a piece 

. . . There's for you! Give me six months, then go, see 

Something in Sant' Ambrogio's ! Bless the nuns! 

They want a cast o' my oflSce. I shall paint 

God in the midst, Madonna and her babe. 

Ringed by a bowery, flowery angel-brood. 

Lilies and vestments and white faces, sweet 

As puff on puff of grated orris-root 

When ladies crowd to church at midsummer. 

And then i' the front, of course a saint or two — 

Saint John, because he saves the Florentines, 

Saint Ambrose, who puts down in black and white 

The convent's friends and gives them a long day, 

And Job, I must have him there past mistake. 

The man of Uz (and Us without the z. 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 261 

Painters who need his patience). Well, all these 

Secured at their devotion, up shall come 

Out of a corner when you least expect, 

As one by a dark stair into a great light. 

Music and talking, who but Lippo! I! — 

Mazed, motionless and moonstruck — I'm the man! 

Back I shrink — what is this I see and hear ? 

I, caught up with my monk's-things by mistake. 

My old serge gown and rope that goes all round, 

I, in this presence, this pure company! 

Where's a hole, where 's a corner for escape ? 

Then steps a sweet angelic slip of a thing 

Forward, puts out a soft palm — "Not so fast!" 

— Addresses the celestial presence, "nay — 

He made you and devised you, after all. 

Though he's none of you I Could Saint John there draw — 

His camel-hair make up a painting-brush ? 

We come to brother Lippo for all that, 

Iste perfecit opus! " So, all smile — 

I shuffle sideways with my blushing face 

Under the cover of a hundred wings 

Thrown like a spread of kirtles when you*re gay 

And play hot cockles, all the doors being shut. 

Till, wholly unexpected, in there pops 

The hothead husband! Thus I scuttle off 

To some safe bench behind, not letting go 

The palm of her, the little hly thing 

That spoke the good word for me in the nick. 

Like the Prior's niece . . . Saint Lucy, I would say. 

And so all's saved for me, and for the church 

A pretty picture gained. Go, six months hence! 

Your hand, sir, and good-bye: no lights, no lights! 

The street's hushed, and I know my own way back. 

Don't fear me! There's the gray beginning. Zooks! 



262 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Vasari describes Andrea del Sarto, whose, 
pupil he was, as **One in whom art and 
nature combined to show all that may be 
done in painting, when design, coloring and 
invention unite in one and the same person." 
His story in brief as gathered from Vasari's 
life is as follows: 

** He was born in Florence in 1488, his father 
being a tailor, for which cause he was always 
called Andrea del Sarto, meaning ' the Tailor's 
Andrew.' At seven he was taken from 
school and placed with a goldsmith, where 
he showed more aptitude for using the pencil 
than the chisel. He soon attracted the atten- 
tion of a Florentine painter, Gian Barile, who 
taught him painting. He progressed so 
rapidly, to Gian's delight, that the latter spoke 
to Piero di Cosimo, then considered one of 
the best masters in Florence. Piero was 
equally delighted with his progress and be- 
came very fond of him. From this he passed 
to a friendship with the young artist, Francia- 
bigio. They lived together and executed 
many works in company. 

'* Later his friendship with the young sculp- 
tor, Jacopo Sansovino, seems to have done 
much for his development, for we are told 
that the conversations of these young artists 
were, for the most part, respecting the dif- 




Portrait of Andrea del Sarto, by Himself. 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 263 

ficulties of their art; wherefore, there was no 
reason to be surprised that both of them 
should ultimately attain to great excellence. 
Page after page in Vasari is taken up with 
describing the numerous and beautiful works 
with which Andrea adorned Florence." 

The next important step in his life was his 
marriage. The relation between Sarto and 
his wife forms so integral a part of the 
atmosphere of the poem that we give it just 
as Vasari did in the first edition of his Lives: 

'*At that time there was a most beautiful 
girl in the 'via di San Gallo,' who was married 
to a cap-maker, and who, though born of a 
poor and vicious father, carried about her as 
much pride and haughtiness as beauty and 
fascination. She delighted in trapping the 
hearts of men, and among others ensnared 
the unlucky Andrea, whose immoderate love 
for her soon caused him to neglect the studies 
demanded by his art and in great measure 
to discontinue the assistance which he had 
given to his parents. 

''Now it happened that a sudden and griev- 
ous illness seized the husband of this woman, 
who rose no more from his bed, but died 
thereof. Without taking counsel of his 
friends, therefore, without regard to the 
dignity of his art or the consideration due to 



264 BROWNING'S ITALY 

his genius and to the eminence he had attained 
with so much labor; without a word, in short, 
to any of his kindred, Andrea took this 
Lucrezia di Baccio del Fede, such was the 
name of the woman, to be his wife; her beauty 
appearing to him to merit thus much at his 
hands, and his love for her having more in- 
fluence over him than the glory and honor 
towards which he had begun to make such 
hopeful advances. But when this news be- 
came known in Florence, the respect and 
affection which his friends had previously 
borne to Andrea changed to contempt and 
disgust, since it appeared to them that the 
darkness of this disgrace had obscured for a 
time all the glory and renown obtained by 
his talents. 

"But he destroyed his own peace as well 
as estranged his friends by this act, seeing 
that he soon became jealous and found that 
he had besides fallen into the hands of an 
artful woman, who made him do as she 
pleased in all things. He abandoned his own 
poor father and mother, for example, and 
adopted the father and sisters of his wife in 
their stead; insomuch that all who knew the 
facts mourned over him and he soon began 
to be as much avoided as he had been pre- 
viously sought after. His disciples still re- 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 265 

mained with him, it is true, in the hope of 
learning something useful, yet there was not 
one of them, great or small that was not mal- 
treated by his wife, both by evil words and 
despiteful actions: none could escape her 
blows, but although Andrea lived in the 
midst of all that torment, he yet accounted 
it a high pleasure." 

The darkness of this story is somewhat 
lightened by the fact that Del Sarto in his 
will, made a few years before his death, speaks 
of her with great affection and makes ample 
provision for her. Though still handsome 
she remained a widow, and while selling 
Andrea's other pictures, she retained his 
portrait of himself. It is further related that 
more than thirty years after Del Sarto's 
death, when the young Jacopo Chimenti da 
Empoli was making some studies from the 
frescos in the portico of the Annunziata, an 
old woman on her way to Mass stopped and 
spoke to him; after some talk about his work 
and the paintings, she told him that she was 
the model for several of the figures in them. 
It was Lucrezia, who had outlived the great 
school of Florence and who still came to 
pray in the church where her husband was 
buried. She died in 1570. 

The other damaging event of his life 



266 BROWNING'S ITALY 

grew out of his relation with the King of 
France. 

The King of France had been delighted 
with two pictures painted for him by Andrea 
del Sarto, and hearing that Andrea might be 
prevailed upon to visit France, invited him 
and had him provided with everything need- 
ful for the expenses of the journey. 

Having in due time arrived at the French 
Court he was received by the monarch 
very amicably and with many favors, even 
the first day of his arrival was marked to 
Andrea by proofs of that magnanimous sov- 
ereign's liberality and courtesy, since he at 
once received not only a present of money, but 
the added gift of very rich and honorable vest- 
ments. He painted many pictures, gave great 
satisfaction to the whole court and received a 
considerable annual income from the King. 

"One day he received a letter, after having 
received many others from Lucrezia his wife, 
whom he had left disconsolate for his de- 
parture, although she wanted for nothing. 
She wrote with bitter complaints to Andrea, 
declaring that she never ceased to weep and 
was in perpetual affliction at his absence. 
He, therefore, asked the King's permission 
to return to Florence, but said that when he 
had arranged his aiffairs in that city he would 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 267 

return without fail to his majesty: he added 
that when he came back his wife should 
accompany him to the end that he might 
remain in France the more quietly, and that 
he would bring with him pictures and sculp- 
tures of great value. The King, confiding in 
these promises, gave him money for the pur- 
chase of those pictures and sculptures, Andrea 
taking an oath on the gospels to return within 
the space of a few months, and that done he 
departed to his native city. 

"He arrived safely in Florence enjoying the 
society of his beautiful wife and that of her 
friends, with the sight of his native city 
during several months, but when the period 
specified by the King and that at which he 
ought to have returned had come and passed, 
he found himself at the end, not only of his 
own money, but what with building, in- 
dulging himself in various pleasures and 
doing no work, of that belonging to the French 
King also, the whole of which he had con- 
sumed. He was nevertheless determined to 
return to France, but the prayers and tears 
of his wife had more power than his own 
necessities, or the faith which he had pledged 
to the King: he remained, therefore, in Florence 
and the King was so angered thereby that 
for a long time he would not look at any 



268 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Florentine pictures, and declared that if ever 
he laid hands on him he would do him more 
harm than he had ever done him good. He 
remained in Florence as we have said and 
from a highly eminent position he sank to 
the very lowest, procuring a livelihood and 
passing his time as he best might." 

Browning not only uses these events in his 
poem, but he allows Vasari's opinion of Del 
Sarto to color the portrayal of his character. 
We can say of the man in the poem exactly the 
same things that Vasari says of the actual man : 

"Had this master possessed a somewhat 
bolder and more elevated mind, had he been 
as much distinguished for higher qualifica- 
tions as he was for genius and depth of judg- 
ment in the art he practised, he would, 
beyond all doubt, have been without an equal. 
But there was a certain timidity of mind, a 
sort of difiidence and want of force in his 
nature, which rendered it impossible that 
those evidences of ardor and animation which 
are proper to the more exalted character, 
should ever appear in him; nor did he at any 
time display one particle of that elevation 
which, could it have been added to the ad- 
vantages wherewith he was endowed, would 
have rendered him a truly divine painter. 
His figures are entirely free from errors and 




2; 
o 

M 

O 

2; 
z 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 269 

perfect in all their proportions and are for 
the most part simple and chaste." 

Later criticism is in much the same key as 
that of Vasari's. He is admitted to deserve 
the name given him by the Italians of "the 
faultless painter," because as Symonds says 
*'in all the technical requirements of art, in 
drawing, composition, handling of fresco and 
oils, disposition of draperies, and feeling for 
light and shadow, he was above criticism." 
Furthermore Symonds gives expression to 
what every one must feel in looking at his 
pictures, the beauty of his coloring. *'His 
silver-gray harmonies and liquid blendings 
of lines cool, yet lustrous, have a charm pecu- 
liar to himself alone. We find the like no- 
where else in Italy." And yet, and yet, he 
echoes the old feeling that Andrea del Sarto 
cannot take rank among the greatest Renais- 
sance painters. ''What he lacked was pre- 
cisely the most precious gift — inspiration, 
depth of emotion, energy of thought." 

Browning has made known the personality, 
and awakened our sympathy for this brilliant 
failure among the great painters of Italy in a 
masterly manner, which as in the case of 
*'Fra Lippo Lippi," and the remaining art 
monologues, can be appreciated only by read- 
ing the poems themselves. 



270 BROWNING'S ITALY 

ANDREA DEL SARTO 

(called "the faultless painter") 

But do not let us quarrel any more. 
No, my Lucrezia; bear with me for once: 
Sit down and all shall happen as you wish. 
You turn your face, but does it bring your heart ? 
I'll work then for your friend's friend, never fear. 
Treat his own subject after his own way, 
Fix his own time, accept too his own price. 
And shut the money into this small hand 
When next it takes mine. Will it ? tenderly ? 
Oh, I'll content him, — but to-morrow, Love! 
I often am much wearier than you think. 
This evening more than usual, and it seems 
As if — forgive now — should you let me sit 
Here by the window with your hand in mine 
And look a half -hour forth on Fiesole, 
Both of one mind, as married people use. 
Quietly, quietly the evening through, 
I might get up to-morrow to my work 
Cheerful and fresh as ever. Let us try. 
To-morrow, how you shall be glad for this! 
Your soft hand is a woman of itself. 
And mine the man's bared breast she curls inside. 
Don't count the time lost, neither; you must serve 
For each of the five pictures we require: 
It saves a model. So! keep looking so — 
My serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds! 
— How could you ever prick those perfect ears. 
Even to put the pearl there! oh, so sweet — 
My face, my moon, my everybody's moon. 
Which everybody looks on and calls his. 
And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn. 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 271 

While she looks — no one's: very dear, no less. 
You smile ? why there's my picture ready made. 
There's what we painters call our harmony! 
A common grayness silvers everything, — 
All in a twilight, you and I alike 

— You, at the point of your first pride in me 
(That's gone you know), — but I, at every point; 
My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned down 
To yonder sober pleasant Fiesole. 

There's the bell clinking from the chapel-top; 

That length of convent-wall across the way 

Holds the trees safer, huddled more inside; 

The last monk leaves the garden; days decrease. 

And autumn grows, autumn in everything. 

Eh ? the whole seems to fall into a shape 

As if I saw alike my work and self 

And all that I was born to be and do, 

A twilight-piece. Love, we are in God's hand. 

How strange now, looks the life he makes us lead; 

So free we seem, so fettered fast we are! 

I feel he laid the fetter: let it lie! 

This chamber for example — turn your head — 

All that's behind us! You don't understand 

Nor care to understand about my art, 

But you can hear at least when people speak: 

And that cartoon, the second from the door 

— It is the thing. Love! so such things should be — 
Behold Madonna! — I am bold to say. 

I can do with my pencil what I know. 
What I see, what at bottom of my heart 
I wish for, if I ever wish so deep — 
Do easily, too — when I say, perfectly, 
I do not boast, perhaps: yourself are judge. 
Who listened to the Legate's talk last week, 



272 BROWNING'S ITALY 

And just as much they used to say in France. 

At any rate 'tis easy, all of it! 

No sketches first, no studies, that's long past: 

I do what many dream of all their lives, 

— Dream ? strive to do, and agonize to do, 

And fail in doing. I could count twenty such 

On twice your fingers, and not leave this town. 

Who strive — you don't know how the others strive 

To paint a little thing like that you smeared 

Carelessly passing with your robes afloat, — 

Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says, 

(I know his name, no matter) — so much less! 

Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged. 

There burns a truer light of God in them. 

In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain, 

Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to prompt 

This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine. 

Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know. 

Reach many a time a heaven that's shut to me, 

Enter and take their place there sure enough. 

Though they come back and cannot tell the world. 

My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here. 

The sudden blood of these men! at a word — 

Praise them, it boils, or blame them, it boils too. 

I, painting from myself and to myself, 

Know what I do, am unmoved by men's blame 

Or their praise either. Somebody remarks 

Morello's outline there is wrongly traced, 

His hue mistaken; what of that? or else. 

Rightly traced and well ordered; what of that? 

Speak as they please, what does the mountain care? 

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, 

Or what's a heaven for ? All is silver-gray 

Placid and perfect with my art: the worse! 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 273 

I know both what I want and what might gain, 

And yet how profitless to know, to sigh 

"Had I been two, another and myself. 

Our head would have o'erlooked the world!" No doubt. 

Yonder's a work now, of that famous youth 

The Urbinate who died five years ago. 

('Tis copied, George Vasari sent it me.) 

Well, I can fancy how he did it all. 

Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see. 

Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him. 

Above and through his art — for it gives way; 

That arm is wrongly put — and there again — 

A fault to pardon in the drawing's lines, 

Its body, so to speak: its soul is right. 

He means right — that, a child may understand. 

Still, what an arm! and I could alter it: 

But all the play, the insight and the stretch — 

Out of me, out of me! And wherefore out.f^ 

Had you enjoined them on me, given me soul. 

We might have risen to Rafael, I and you! 

Nay, Love, you did give all I asked, I think — 

More than I merit, yes, by many times. 

But had you — oh, with the same perfect brow. 

And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth. 

And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird 

The fowler's pipe, and follows to the snare — 

Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind! 

Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged 

*'God and the glory! never care for gain. 

The present by the future, what is that ? 

Live for fame, side by side with Agnolo! 

Rafael is waiting: up to God, all three!'* 

I might have done it for you. So it seems: 

Perhaps not. All is as God overrules. 



274 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Beside, incentives come from the soul's self; 

The rest avail not. Why do I need you ? 

What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo ? 

In this world, who can do a thing, will not; 

And who would do it, cannot, I perceive: 

Yet the will's somewhat — somewhat, too, the power 

And thus we half -men struggle. At the end, 

God, I conclude, compensates, punishes. 

'Tis safer for me, if the award be strict. 

That I am something underrated here. 

Poor this long while, despised, to speak the truth. 

I dared not, do you know, leave home all day. 

For fear of chancing on the Paris lords. 

The best is when they pass and look aside; 

But they speak sometimes; I must bear it all. 

Well may they speak! That Francis, that first time, 

And that long festal year at Fontainebleau ! 

I surely then could sometimes leave the ground. 

Put on the glory, Rafael's daily wear. 

In that humane great monarch's golden look, — 

One finger in his beard or twisted curl 

Over his mouth's good mark that made the smile. 

One arm about my shoulder, round my neck. 

The jingle of his gold chain in my ear, 

I painting proudly with his breath on me, 

All his court round him, seeing with his eyes. 

Such frank French eyes, and such a fire of souls 

Profuse, my hand kept plying by those hearts, — 

And, best of all, this, this, this face beyond. 

This in the background, waiting on my work, 

To crown the issue with a last reward! 

A good time, was it not, my kingly days ? 

And had you not grown restless . . . but I know — 

'Tis done and past; 'twas right, my instinct said; 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 275 

Too live the life grew, golden and not gray, 

And I'm the weak-eyed bat no sun should tempt 

Out of the grange whose four walls make his world. 

How could it end in any other way ? 

You called me, and I came home to your heart. 

The triumph was — to reach and stay there; since 

I reached it ere the triumph, what is lost.'' 

Let my hands frame your face in your hair's gold, 

You beautiful Lucrezia that are mine! 

"Rafael did this, Andrea painted that; 

The Roman's is the better when you pray. 

But still the other's Virgin was his wife " — • 

Men will excuse me. I am glad to judge 

Both pictures in your presence; clearer grows 

My better fortune, I resolve to think. 

For, do you know, Lucrezia, as God lives. 

Said one day Agnolo, his very self. 

To Rafael ... I have known it all these years . . . 

(When the young man was flaming out his thoughts 

Upon a palace-wall for Rome to see. 

Too lifted up in heart because of it) 

"Friend, there's a certain sorry little scrub 

Goes up and down our Florence, none cares how. 

Who, were he set to plan and execute 

As you are, pricked on by your popes and kings. 

Would bring the sweat into that brow of yours!'* 

To Rafael's! — And indeed the arm is wrong. 

I hardly dare . . . yet, only you to see, 

Give the chalk here — quick, thus the line should go! 

Ay, but the soul! he's Rafael! rub it out! 

Still, all I care for, if he spoke the truth, 

(What he ? why, who but Michel Agnolo ? 

Do you forget already words like those ?) 

If really there was such a chance, so lost, — 



276 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Is, whether you're — not grateful — but more pleased. 

Well, let me think so. And you smile indeed! 

This hour has been an hour! Another smile? 

If you would sit thus by me every night 

I should work better, do you comprehend ? 

I mean that I should earn more, give you more. 

See, it is settled dusk now; there's a star; 

Morello's gone, the watch-lights show the wall. 

The cue-owls speak the name we call them by. 

Come from the window, love, — come in, at last. 

Inside the melancholy little house 

We built to be so gay with. God is just. 

King Francis may forgive me: oft at nights 

When I look up from painting, eyes tired out. 

The walls become illumined, brick from brick 

Distinct, instead of mortar, fierce bright gold. 

That gold of his I did cement them with! 

Let us but love each other. Must you go ? 

That Cousin here again .? he waits outside ? 

Must see you — you, and not with me ? Those loans ? 

More gaming debts to pay ? you smiled for that ? 

Well, let smiles buy me ! have you more to spend ? 

While hand and eye and something of a heart 

Are left me, work's my ware, and what's it worth ? 

I'll pay my fancy. Only let me sit 

The gray remainder of the evening out. 

Idle, you call it, and muse perfectly 

How could I paint, were I but back in France, 

One picture, just one more — the Virgin's face. 

Not yours this time! I want you at my side 

To hear them — that is, Michel Agnolo — 

Judge all I do and tell you of its worth. 

Will you ? To-morrow, satisfy your friend. 

I take the subjects for his corridor, 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 277 

Finish the portrait out of hand — there, there, 

And throw him in another thing or two 

If he demurs; the whole should prove enough 

To pay for this same Cousin's freak. Beside, 

What's better and what's all I care about. 

Get you the thirteen scudi for the ruff! 

Love, does that please you ? Ah, but what does he. 

The Cousin! what does he to please you more? 

I am grown peaceful as old age to-night. 
I regret little, I would change still less. 
Since there my past life lies, why alter it ? 
The very wrong to Francis ! — it is true 
I took his coin, was tempted and complied. 
And built this house and sinned, and all is said. 
My father and my mother died of want. 
Well, had I riches of my own ? you see 
How one gets rich! Let each one bear his lot. 
They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they died: 
And I have labored somewhat in my time 
And not been paid profusely. Some good son 
Paint my two hundred pictures — let him try! 
No doubt, there's something strikes a balance. Yes, 
You loved me quite enough, it seems to-night. 
This must suffice me here. What would one have ? 
In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance — 
Four great walls in the New Jerusalem, 
Meted on each side by the angel's reed. 
For Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo and me 
To cover — the three first without a wife. 
While I have mine! So — still they overcome 
Because there's still Lucrezia, — as I choose. 

Again the Cousin's whistle! Go, my Love. 



278 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Pictor Ignotus reveals the feelings of a 
sensitive spirit, failing for quite other reasons 
than Andrea del Sarto. While such a being 
might think the reasons for his not painting 
pictures like the youth so much praised were 
because of his dislike to merchandize his art, 
or because he did not wish to have them 
sullied by blundering criticism, the truth is 
that the feeling itself is a sign of the self -con- 
sciousness which leads to imitation rather than 
to real creative force. We may imagine this 
painter belonging to the crowd of painters 
who filled up the latter part of the sixteenth 
century and marked the decline of the great 
age of Italian art. 

PICTOR IGNOTUS 

FLORENCE, 15 — 

I COULD have painted pictures like that youth's 

Ye praise so. How my soul springs up! No bar 
Stayed me — ah, thought which saddens while it soothes! 

— Never did fate forbid me, star by star. 
To outburst on your night with all my gift 

Of fires from God: nor would my flesh have shrunk 
From seconding my soul, with eyes uplift 

And wide to heaven, or, straight like thunder, sunk 
To the centre, of an instant; or around 

Turned calmly and inquisitive, to scan 
The license and the limit, space and bound. 

Allowed to truth made visible in man. 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 279 

And, like that youth ye praise so, all I saw. 

Over the canvas could my hand have flung. 
Each face obedient to its passion's law. 

Each passion clear proclaimed without a tongue; 
Whether Hope rose at once in all the blood, 

A-tiptoe for the blessing of embrace. 
Or Rapture drooped the eyes, as when her brood 

Pull down the nesting dove's heart to its place; 
Or Confidence lit swift the forehead up. 

And locked the mouth fast, like a castle braved, — 
O human faces, hath it spilt, my cup ? 

What did ye give me that I have not saved ? 
Nor will I say I have not dreamed (how well!) 

Of going — I, in each new picture, — forth. 
As, making new hearts beat and bosoms swell. 

To Pope or Kaiser, East, West, South, or North, 
Bound for the calmly satisfied great State, 

Or glad aspiring little burgh, it went. 
Flowers cast upon the car which bore the freight. 

Through old streets named afresh from the event, 
Till it reached home, where learned age should greet 

My face, and youth, the star not yet distinct 
Above his hair, lie learning at my feet! — 

Oh, thus to live, I and my picture, linked 
With love about, and praise, till life should end. 

And then not go to heaven, but linger here, 
Here on my earth, earth's every man my friend — 

The thought grew frightful, 'twas so wildly dear! 
But a voice changed it. Glimpses of such sights 

Have scared me, like the revels through a door 
Of some strange house of idols at its rites! 

This world seemed not the world it was before: 
Mixed with my loving trusting ones, there trooped 

. . . Who summoned those cold faces that begun 



280 BROWNING'S ITALY 

To press on me and judge me ? Though I stooped 

Shrinking, as from the soldiery a nun, 
They drew me forth, and spite of me . . . enough! 

These buy and sell our pictures,* take and give. 
Count them for garniture and household-stuff, 

And where they live needs must our pictures live 
And see their faces, listen to their prate. 

Partakers of their daily pettiness, 
Discussed of, — "This I love, or this I hate, 

This hkes me more, and this affects me less!'* 
Wherefore I chose my portion. If at whiles 

My heart sinks, as monotonous I paint 
These endless cloisters and eternal aisles 

With the same series. Virgin, Babe and Saint, 
With the same cold calm beautiful regard, — 

At least no merchant traffics in my heart; 
The sanctuary's gloom at least shall ward 

Vain tongues from where my pictures stand apart; 
Only prayer breaks the silence of the shrine 

While, blackening in the daily candle-smoke, 
They moulder on the damp wall's travertine, 

'Mid echoes the light footsteps never woke. 
So, die my pictures! surely, gently die! 

O youth, men praise so, — holds their praise its worth ? 
Blown harshly, keeps the trump its golden cry.^ 

Tastes sweet the water with such specks of earth ? 

One more poem of Browning's gives a 
glimpse of Renaissance art, "The Bishop 
orders his tomb at St. Praxed's." This may 
be read in connection with **Pictor Ignotus" 
as reveahng another phase of the decadence 
of art, when gross worldKness, luxury and 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 281 

hypocrisy had become the distinguishing 
marks of the clergy and were manifested in 
the art which they encouraged for their own 
gloriJQcation. The Bishop and his tomb are 
both imaginary, but they none the less reveal 
with absolute fidelity the hypocrisy of the 
clergy, not to say their absolute wickedness, 
and the vulgar art that appealed to their 
degenerate taste. 

THE BISHOP ORDERS HIS TOMB AT SAINT 
PRAXED'S CHURCH 

ROME, 15 

Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity! 

Draw round my bed : is Anselm keeping back ? 

Nephews — sons mine ... ah God, I know not! 

Well — 
She, men, would have to be your mother once. 
Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was! 
What's done is done, and she is dead beside, 
Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since, 
And as she died so must we die ourselves. 
And thence ye may perceive the world's a dream. 
Life, how and what is it ? As here I he 
In this state-chamber, dying by degrees. 
Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask 
"Do I live, am I dead?" Peace, peace seems all. 
Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace; 
And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought 
With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know: 
— Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care; 



282 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Shrewd was that snatch from out the comer South 

He graced his carrion with, God curse the same! 

Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence 

One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side, 

And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats, 

And up into the aery dome where live 

The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk: 

And I shall fill my slab of basalt there. 

And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest. 

With those nine columns round me, two and two. 

The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands: 

Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe 

As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse. 

— Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone, 
Put me where I may look at him! True peach, 
Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize! 
Draw close: that conflagration of my church 

— What then ? So much was saved if aught were missed! 
My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig 

The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood, 

Drop water gently till the surface sink. 

And if ye find . . . Ah God, I know not, I! . . . 

Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft. 

And corded up in a tight olive-frail. 

Some lump, ah God, of lapis lazuli. 

Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape, 

Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast . . . 

Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all. 

That brave Frascati villa with its bath. 

So, let the blue lump poise between my knees. 

Like God the Father's globe on both his hands 

Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay. 

For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst! 

Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years: 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 283 

Man goeth to the grave and where is he? 

Did I say basalt for my slab, sons ? Black — 

*Twas ever antique -black I meant! How else 

Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath ? 

The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me. 

Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance 

Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so. 

The Saviour at his sermon on the Mount, 

Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan 

Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off. 

And Moses with the tables . , . but I know 

Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee, 

Child of my bowels, Anselm ? Ah, ye hope 

To revel down my villas while I gasp 

Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine 

Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at! 

Nay, boys, ye love me — all of jasper, then! 

'Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve 

My bath must needs be left behind, alas! 

One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut. 

There's plenty jasper somewhere in the world — 

And have I not St. Praxed 's ear to pray 

Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts, 

And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs ? 

— That's if ye carve my epitaph aright, 

Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word. 

No gaudy ware hke Gandolf 's second line — 

Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need! 

And then how I shall lie through centuries. 

And hear the blessed mutter of the Mass, 

And see God made and eaten all day long, 

And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste 

Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke! 

For as I he here, hours of the dead night, 



284 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Dying in state and by such slow degrees, 

I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook, 

And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point, 

And let the bedclothes, for a mort cloth, drop 

Into great laps and folds of sculptor 's-work: 

And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts 

Grow, with a certain humming in my ears. 

About the life before I lived this life. 

And this life too, popes, cardinals and priests, 

Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount. 

Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes. 

And new-found agate urns as fresh as day. 

And marble's language, Latin, pure, discreet, 

— Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend ? 

No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best! 

Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage. 

All lapis, all, sons! Else I give the Pope 

My villas ! Will ye ever eat my heart ? 

Ever your eyes were as a hzard's quick, 

They glitter hke your mother's for my soul. 

Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze. 

Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase 

With grapes, and add a vizor and a Term, 

And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx 

That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down. 

To comfort me on my entablature 

Wherever I am to lie till I must ask 

"Do I live, am I dead?" There, leave me, there! 

For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude 

To death — ye wish it — God, ye wish it! Stone — 

Gritstone, a-crumble! Clammy squares which sweat 

As if the corpse they keep were oozing through — 

And no more lapis to delight the world! 

Well go! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there. 



THE ARTIST AND HIS ART 285 

But in a row: and, going, turn your backs 

— Ay, like departing altar-ministrants, 

And leave me in my church the church for peace, 

That I may watch at leisure if he leers — 

Old Gandolf, at me, from his onion-stone, 

As still he envied me, so fair she was! 

Though it does not come within our present 
scope to dwell upon the marvelous genius 
shown by the poet in these portrayals of 
diverse types of Renaissance artists, one 
word must be said, namely, that we cannot 
help feeling some sense of regret that he 
refrained from illuminating for the world 
with his poetic vision the souls of men like 
Michael Angelo and Raphael. Perhaps he 
felt before them as he did before Shakespeare, 
"To such name's sounding, what succeeds 
Fitly as silence." 

Besides the dramatic power of these mono- 
logues by means of which these artists seem 
to live and breathe before us, they have 
genuine value as criticism, and, be it said, 
criticism of the highest order, not merely 
appreciation, but that penetrating insight 
into the nature of the man and the con- 
ditions surrounding him that go to make the 
qualities by which his art must perforce be 
distinguished. 

To close with a remark of Symonds who 



286 BROWNING'S ITALY 

has been our chief guide through the mazes 
of this world of the painter's imagination, — 
'*It is one of the sad features of this sub- 
ject, that each section has to end in lamenta- 
tion. Servitude in the sphere of politics; 
literary feebleness in scholarship; decadence 
in art — ^ to shun these conclusions is im- 
possible. He who has undertaken to describe 
the parabola of a projectile cannot be satis- 
fied with tracing its gradual rise and deter- 
mining its culmination. He must follow its 
spent force, and watch it slowly sink with 
ever dwindling impetus to the earth." 



V 

PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 

"The year's at the spring 
And day's at the morn; 
Morning's at seven; 
The hill-side's dew-pearled; 
The lark's on the wing; 
The snail's on the thorn: 
God's in his heaven — 
All's right with the world!" 

THE poems in which Browning gives some 
idea of the social conditions in Italy have 
dates ranging from the sixteenth century to near 
the end of the eighteenth. Four of them, "My 
Last Duchess," '*Cenciaja," "In a Gondola" 
and "The Ring and the Book," have to do with 
murders, while all show appalling conditions of 
social decay. These glimpses of the time are 
only too true to the actual facts as they may be 
gleaned from contemporary records. 

"My Last Duchess" is not dated, but it is 
quite significant that the scene of the poem is 
Ferrara, for the story of Lucrezia de' Medici 
furnishes a strikingly similar incident. She was 

287 



288 BROWNING'S ITALY 

the daughter of Cosimo de' Medici and became 
the Duchess of Ferrara, and faUing under sus- 
picion of infidehty was possibly removed by 
poison in 1561. This would be quite enough 
of a hint for the poet to build his poem upon. 
The poem, it is true, was first entitled more 
vaguely "Italy," yet this episode of Medici 
family history could hardly have failed to serve 
the poet as the initiative idea of the poem. 

The Duke of Ferrara is pictured arranging 
for a new match with an ambassador from 
another Count. In the course of the conversa- 
tion, he shows the ambassador a portrait of his 
last Duchess, whose general kindliness of nature 
was cause enough in this Duke's eyes for jeal- 
ousy and for punishment by death. He is a 
typical art-connoisseur of the time, and evidently 
takes an emotionally artistic delight in the posses- 
sion of the portrait of his beautiful murdered wife. 

It is a gem among Browning's poems for its 
incisive, swift and perfect portraiture of the 
Duke and his wife and its suggestion of the 
social conditions of the time in the scene setting 
— and all in the space of fifty-six lines : 

MY LAST DUCHESS 

FERRARA 

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall. 
Looking as if she were ahve. I call 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 289 

That piece a wonder now: Fra Pandolf's hands 

Worked busily a day, and there she stands. 

Will 't please you sit and look at her? I said 

"Fra Pandolf" by design, for never read 

Strangers like you that pictured countenance, 

The depth and passion of its earnest glance. 

But to myself they turned (since none puts by 

The curtain I have drawn for you, but I) 

And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst. 

How such a glance came there; so, not the first 

Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 't was not 

Her husband's presence only, called that spot 

Of joy into the Duchess' check: perhaps 

Fra Pandolf chanced to say, "Her mantle laps 

Over my lady's wrist too much," or "Paint 

Must never hope to reproduce the faint 

Half -flush that dies along her throat:" such stuff 

Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough 

For calling up that spot of joy. She had 

A heart — how shall I say "^ — too soon made glad, 

Too easily impressed: she liked whate'er 

She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. 

Sir, 't was all one! My favor at her breast, 

The dropping of the daylight in the West, 

The bough of cherries some officious fool 

Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule 

She rode with round the terrace — all and each 

Would draw from her alike the approving speech, 

Or blush, at least. She thanked men, — good! but thanked 

Somehow — I know not how — as if she ranked 

My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name 

With anybody's gift. Who'd stoop to blame 

This sort of trifling? Even had you skill 

In speech — (which I have not) — to make your will 



290 BKOWNING'S ITALY 

Quite clear to such an one, and say, "Just this 

Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss, 

Or there exceed the mark" — and if she let 

Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set 

Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse, 

— E'en then would be some stooping; and I choose 

Never to stoop. Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt. 

Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without 

Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; 

Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands 

As if alive. Will 't please you rise ? We'll meet 

The company below, then. I repeat. 

The Count your master's known munificence 

Is ample warrant that no just pretence 

Of mine for dowry will be disallowed; 

Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed 

At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go 

Together down, sir. Notice Neptune, though, 

Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity. 

Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me! 

One may ask in surprise did not society at 
that late date object even to a Duke's murdering 
his wife upon such slight grounds? On the 
contrary, society condoned the murder of a wife 
who was faithless or suspected of faithlessness. 
The law took cognizance of the fact, but always 
considered that there were extenuating circum- 
stances. The murder of a sister who brought 
disgrace upon her family in any way was also 
condoned. In fact during the last three quar- 
ters of the sixteenth century violent crimes of 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 291 

all sorts committed by individuals for personal 
ends were on the increase. 

The general state of society is horrible to 
contemplate, for it became the custom for people 
of quality to keep a retinue of " knights errant," 
as they were euphoniously called, to do their 
cruel jobs for them. They had only to "give 
commands" as the Duke did, whenever they 
wanted "smiles" to cease. This dismal state 
of affairs was probably the working out of the 
cruel, warlike spirit which had been engendered 
by the centuries of political struggle. Now as 
Symonds puts it, "the broad political and relig- 
ious contests which had torn the country in the 
first years of the sixteenth century, were pacified, 
Foreign armies had ceased to dispute the prov- 
inces of Italy. The victorious powers of Spain, 
the church, and the protected principalities, 
seemed secure in the possession of their gains. 
But those international quarrels which kept the 
nation in unrest through a long period of munic- 
ipal wars, ending in the horrors of successive 
invasions, were now succeeded by an almost 
universal discord between families and persons. 
Each province, each city, each village became 
the theater of private feuds and assassinations. 
Each household was the scene of homicide and 
empoisonment. Italy presented the spectacle of 
a nation, armed against itself, not to decide the 



292 BROWNING'S ITALY 

issue of antagonistic political principles by civil 
strife, but to gratify lawless passions — cupidity, 
revenge, resentment — by deeds of personal 
high-handedness. Among the common people 
of the country and the towns, crimes of brutality 
and bloodshed were of daily occurrence; every 
man bore weapons for self-defense and for attack 
upon his neighbor. The aristocracy and the 
upper classes of the bourgeoisie lived in a per- 
petual state of mutual mistrust, ready upon the 
slightest occasion of fancied affront to blaze forth 
into murder." 

The Church, instead of frowning upon these 
practises, countenanced them and even used 
them for their own ends ; particularly the Jesuits 
encouraged assassination for reasons which they 
considered sacred. 

The Medici, whom we have seen before as the 
patrons of learning and art connoisseurs, have 
a record of eleven murders in their family in a 
space of fifty years. 

"In Cenciaja" Browning plunges into a dis- 
cussion, it must be confessed not exactly poetic, 
of certain details of the Cenci story. The crim- 
inology of this family furnishes as good an 
example as any of the sort of family history 
possible at that time. In the story as usually 
told, Beatrice arouses sympathy for the crime in 
which she was implicated with her brothers of 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 293 

the murder of their father because of her father's 
outrageous treatment of her. Browning takes 
Shelley's "Cenci" as his starting point, and begs 
leave to tell how it came to pass that at the last 
the clemency of the Pope was changed to 
sternness. 

CENCIAJA 

Ogni cencio vuol entrare in bucato 

— Italian Proverb 

May I print, Shelley, how it came to pass 

That when your Beatrice seemed — by lapse 

Of many a long month since her sentence fell — • 

Assured of pardon for the parricide — 

By intercession of stanch friends, or, say. 

By certain pricks or conscience in the Pope 

Conniver at Francesco Cenci's guilt, — 

Suddenly all things changed and Clement grew 

"Stem," as you state, "nor to be moved nor bent. 

But said these three words coldly ^ She must die;* 

Subjoining ''Pardon? Paolo Santa Croce 

Murdered his mother also yestereve, 

And he is fled: she shall not flee at least T'* 

— So, to the letter, sentence was fulfilled ? 

Shelley, may I condense verbosity 

That lies before me, into some few words 

Of English, and illustrate your superb 

Achievement by a rescued anecdote. 

No great things, only new and true beside ? 

As if some mere familiar of a house 

Should venture to accost the group at gaze 



294 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Before its Titian, famed the wide world through, 

And supplement such pictured masterpiece 

By whisper, "Searching in the archives here, 

I found the reason of the Lady's fate, 

And how by accident it came to pass 

She wears the halo and displays the palm: 

Who, haply, else had never suffered — no, 

Nor graced our gallery, by consequence." 

Who loved the work would like the little news: 

Who lauds your poem lends an ear to me 

Relating how the penalty was paid 

By one Marchese dell' Oriolo, called 

Onofrio Santa Croce otherwise, 

For his complicity in matricide 

With Paolo his own brother, — he whose crime 

And flight induced "those three words — 'She must die'." 

Thus I unroll you then the manuscript. 

"God's justice" — (of the multiplicity 
Of such communications extant still, 
Recording, each, injustice done by God 
In person of his Vicar-upon-earth, 
Scarce one but leads off to the selfsame tune) — 
"God's justice, tardy though it prove perchance. 
Rests never on the track until it reach 
Dehnquency. In proof I cite the case 
Of Paolo Santa Croce." 

Many times 
The youngster, — having been importunate 
That Marchesine Costanza, who remained 
His widowed mother, should supplant the heir 
Her elder son, and substitute himself 
In sole possession of her faculty, — 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 295 

And meeting just as often with rebuff, — 
Blinded by so exorbitant a lust 
Of gold, the youngster straightway tasked his wits. 
Casting about to kill the lady — thus. 

He first, to cover his inqulty. 
Writes to Onofrio Santa Croce, then 
Authoritative lord, acquainting him 
Their mother was contamination — wrought 
Like hell-fire in the beauty of their House 
By dissoluteness and abandonment 
Of soul and body to impure delight. 
Moreover, since she suffered from disease, 
Those symptoms which her death made manifest 
Hydroptic, he aflSrmed were fruits of sin 
About to bring confusion and disgrace 
Upon the ancient lineage and high fame 
O' the family, when published. Duty bound. 
He asked his brother — what a son should do ? 

Which when Marchese dell' Oriolo heard 
By letter, being absent at his land, 
Oriolo, he made answer, this, no more: 
"It must behoove a son, — things haply so, — 
To act as honor prompts a cavalier 
And son, perform his duty to all three. 
Mother and brothers" — here advice broke off. 

By which advice informed and fortified, 
As he professed himself — since bound by birth 
To hear God's voice in primogeniture — 
Paolo, who kept his mother company 
In her domain Subiaco, straightway dared 
His whole enormity of enterprise. 



296 BROWNING'S ITALY 

And, falling on her, stabbed the lady dead; 

Whose death demonstrated her innocence, 

And happened, — by the way, — since Jesus Christ 

Died to save man, just sixteen hundred years. 

Costanza was of aspect beautiful 

Exceedingly, and seemed, although in age 

Sixty about, to far surpass her peers 

The coetaneous dames, in youth and grace. 

Done the misdeed, its author takes to flight. 
Foiling thereby the justice of the world: 
Not God's however, — God, be sure, knows well 
The way to clutch a culprit. Witness here! 
The present sinner, when he least expects. 
Snug-cornered somewhere i' the Basilicate, 
Stumbles upon his death by violence. 
A man of blood assaults a man of blood 
And slays him somehow. This was afterward; 
Enough, he promptly met with his deserts, 
And, ending thus, permits we end with him, 
And push forthwith to this important point — 
His matricide fell out, of all the days. 
Precisely when the law-procedure closed 
Respecting Count Francesco Cenci's death 
Chargeable on his daughter, sons and wife. 
"Thus patricide was matched with matricide,'* 
A poet not inelegantly rhymed: 
Nay, fraticide — those Princes Massimi ! — 
Which so disturbed the spirit of the Pope 
That all the likelihood Rome entertained 
Of Beatrice's pardon vanished straight. 
And she endured the piteous death. 

Now see 
The sequel — what effect commandment had 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 297 

For strict inquiry into this last case, 

When Cardinal Aldobrandini (great 

His efficacy — nephew to the Pope) 

Was bidden crush — ay, though his very hand 

Got soil i' the act — crime spawning everywhere! 

Because, when all endeavor had been used 

To catch the aforesaid Paolo, all in vain — 

"Make perquisition," quoth our Eminence, 

"Throughout his now deserted domicile! 

Ransack the palace, roof and floor, to find 

If haply any scrap of writing, hid 

In nook or corner, may convict — who knows ? — 

Brother Onofrio of intelligence 

With brother Paolo, as in brotherhood 

Is but too likely: crime spawns everywhere." 

And, every cranny searched accordingly. 
There comes to light — O lynx-eyed Cardinal! — 
Onofrio's unconsidered writing-scrap. 
The letter in reply to Paolo's prayer. 
The word of counsel that — things proving so, 
Paolo should act the proper knightly part. 
And do as was incumbent on a son, 
A brother — and a man of birth, be sure! 

Whereat immediately the officers 
Proceeded to arrest Onofrio — found 
At football, child's play, unaware of harm. 
Safe with his friends, the Orsini, at their seat 
Monte Giordano; as he left the house 
He came upon the watch in wait for him 
Set by the Barigel, — was caught and caged. 

News of which capture being, that same hour, 
Conveyed to Rome, forthwith our Eminence 



298 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Commands Taverna, Governor and Judge, 

To have the process in especial care, 

Be, first to last, not only president 

In person, but inquisitor as well. 

Nor trust the by-work to a substitute: 

Bids him not, squeamish, keep the bench, but scrub 

The floor of Justice, so to speak, — go try 

His best in prison with the criminal: 

Promising, as reward for by-work done 

Fairly on all-fours, that, success obtained 

And crime avowed, or such connivency 

With crime as should procure a decent death — 

Himself will humbly beg — which means, procure — 

The Hat and Purple from his relative 

The Pope, and so repay a diligence 

Which, meritorious in the Cenci-case, 

Mounts plainly here to Purple and the Hat. 

Whereupon did my lord the Governor 
So masterfully exercise the task 
Enjoined him, that he, day by day, and week 
By week, and month by month, from first to last 
Toiled for the prize: now, punctual at his place. 
Played Judge, and now, assiduous at his post. 
Inquisitor — pressed cushion and scoured plank. 
Early and late. Noon's fervor and night's chill, 
Naught moved whom morn would, purpling, make amends! 
So that observers laughed as, many a day, 
He left home, in July when day is flame. 
Posted to Tordinona-prison, plunged 
Into a vault where daylong night is ice. 
There passed his eight hours on a stretch, content, 
Examining Onofrio: all the stress 
Of all examination steadily 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 299 

Converging into one pin-point, — he pushed 
Tentative now of head and now of heart. 
As when the nut-hatch taps and tries the nut 
This side and that side till the kernel sound, — 
So did he press the sole and single point 

— "What was the very meaning of the phrase 
^Do as beseems an honored cavalier? ' " 

Which one persistent question-torture, — plied 
Day by day, week by week, and month by month. 
Morn, noon and night, — fatigued away a mind 
Grown imbecile by darkness, solitude, 
And one vivacious memory gnawing there 
As when a corpse is coffined with a snake: 

— Fatigued Onofrio into what might seem 
Admission that perchance his judgment groped 
So blindly, feehng for an issue — aught 

With semblance of an issue from the toils 
Cast of a sudden round feet late so free. 
He possibly might have envisaged, scarce 
Recoiled from — even were the issue death 

— Even her death whose life was death and worse! 
Always provided that the charge of crime, 

Each jot and tittle of the charge were true. 
In such a sense, belike, he might advise 
His brother to expurgate crime with . . . well. 
With blood, if blood, must follow on ^Hhe course 
Taken as might beseem a cavalier.'^ 

Whereupon process ended, and report 
Was made without a minute of delay 
To Clement, who, because of those two crimes 
O' the Massimi and Cenci flagrant late. 
Must needs impatiently desire result. 



300 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Result obtained, he bade the Governor 
Summon the Congregation and despatch. 
Summons made, sentence passed accordingly 
— Death by beheading. When his death-decree 
Was intimated to Onofrio, all 
Man could do — that did he to save himself. 
'T was much, the having gained for his defense 
The Advocate o' the Poor, with natural help 
Of many noble friendly persons fain 
To disengage a man of family, 
So young too, from his grim entanglement: 
But Cardinal Aldobrandini ruled 
There must be no diversion of the law. 
Justice is justice, and the magistrate 
Bears not the sword in vain. Who sins must die. 

So, the Marchese had his head cut off, 
With Rome to see, a concourse infinite, 
In Place Saint Angelo beside the Bridge: 
Where, demonstrating magnanimity 
Adequate to his birth and breed, — poor boy! — 
He made the people the accustomed speech, 
Exhorted them to true faith, honest works. 
And special good behavior as regards 
A parent of no matter what the sex. 
Bidding each son take warning from himself. 
Truly, it was considered in the boy 
Stark staring lunacy, no less, to snap 
So plain a bait, be hooked and hauled ashore 
By such an angler as the Cardinal! 
Why make confession of his privity 
To Paolo's enterprise ? Mere sealing lips — 
Or, better, saying "When I counseled him 
* To do as might beseem a cavalier,* 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 301 

What could I mean but 'Hide our parenfs shame 

As Christian ought, by aid of Holy Church! 

Bury it in a convent — ay, beneath 

Enough dotation to prevent its ghost 

From troubling earth V* Mere saying thus, — 't is plain. 

Not only were his life the recompense. 

But he had manifestly proved himself 

True Christian, and in lieu of punishment 

Got praise of all men ! — so the populace. 

Anyhow, when the Pope made promise good 
(That of Aldobrandini, near and dear) 
And gave Taverna, who had toiled so much, 
A Cardinal's equipment, some such word 
As this from mouth to ear went saucily: 
" Taverna 's cap is dyed in what he drew 
From Santa Croce's veins!" So joked the world. 

I add: Onofrio left one child behind, 
A daughter named Valeria, dowered with grace 
Abundantly of soul and body, doomed 
To life the shorter for her father's fate. 
By death of her, the Marquisate returned 
To that Orsini House from whence it came: 
Oriolo having passed as donative 
To Santa Croce from their ancestors. 

And no word more ? By all means ! Would you know 
The authoritative answer, when folk urged 
"What made Aldobrandini, hound-like stanch. 
Hunt out of life a harmless simpleton?" 
The answer was — " Hatred implacable. 
By reason they were rivals in their love." 
The Cardinal's desire was to a dame 



302 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Whose favor was Onofrio's. Pricked with pride. 

The simpleton must ostentatiously 

Display a ring, the Cardinal's love-gift, 

Given to Onofrio as the lady's gage: 

Which ring on finger, as he put forth hand 

To draw a tapestry, the Cardinal 

Saw and knew, gift and owner, old and young; 

Whereon a fury entered him — the fire 

He quenched with what could quench fire only — blood. 

Nay, more: "there want not who affirm to boot, 

The unwise boy, a certain festal eve. 

Feigned ignorance of who the wight might be 

That pressed too closely on him with a crowd. 

He struck the Cardinal a blow: and then. 

To put a face upon the incident, 

Dared next day, snug as ever, go pay court 

I' the Cardinal's antechamber. Mark and mend, 

Ye youth, by this example how may greed 

Vainglorious operate in worldly souls!'* 

So ends the chronicler, beginning with 

"God's justice, tardy though it prove perchance, 

Rests never till it reach delinquency." 

Ay, or how otherwise had come to pass 

That Victor rules, this present year, in Rome ? " 

In a manuscript volume containing the "Re- 
lations of the Cenci affair with other memorials 
of Italian crime," Browning found what he 
called the "Cenciaja," namely, a story which 
divulges the true reason of the sudden change 
of attitude toward Beatrice. It was lent to him 
by Sir J. Simeon; who, he writes, "published 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 303 

the Cenci narrative with notes, in the series of 
the Philobiblon Society. It was a better copy 
of the 'Relation' than that used by Shelley, 
differing at least in a few particulars." 

The poem tells the story that Browning 
found in this manuscript. 

The title of the poem as the poet explains, 
means ''a bundle of rags" — a "trifle"; the 
termination **Aja," is generally an accumu- 
lative yet depreciative one. The meaning of the 
proverb with which he heads the poem "Ogni 
cencio vuol entrare in bucato," is, "Every poor 
creature will be pressing into the company of 
his betters," which he says " I used to depre- 
ciate the notion that I intended anything of the 
kind." 

It may be questioned whether the poetizing of 
this piece of information is worth while except 
for the light it throws upon the possible iniquities 
of the clergy at that time. 

More to the point, however unpleasant it may 
be to contemplate, is the truth about Beatrice, 
whose story is now said to have been fabricated 
by Prospero Farinaccio, the lawyer engaged in 
her defense. He established a theory of enor- 
mous cruelty and unspeakable outrages com- 
mitted upon her person by her father, in order 
to mitigate the guilt of parricide. He also tried 
to make out that her brother, Bernado, was 



304 BROWNING'S ITALY 

half-witted, but there is other evidence to prove 
that he was a young man of ordinary intelHgenee, 
while nothing remains to prove the Beatrice 
legend. Perhaps the worst blow to our senti- 
ments is the fact that the Guido Reni portrait of 
Beatrice in prison in one of the Roman pal- 
aces is most certainly not Beatrice, for Guido 
did not come to Rome until 1608, nine years 
after her death. 

There can be no doubt, however, that old 
Cenci was anything but a delightful father to 
have around. Fines for brutal conduct toward 
servants seem to have been a constant feature of 
his daily life. At one time he was prosecuted 
for an attempt to murder a cousin, at another 
he was outlawed from the states of the church, 
and at another time we find him spending six 
months in prison for crimes of one kind and 
another. Everybody in those days seems to 
have been implicated in vice — cardinals, prel- 
ates, princes, professional men, and people of 
the lowest rank. If they were poor, they might 
be sent to the stake; if rich they could buy 
themselves off. Cenci, for example, paid 100,000 
crowns to free himself from one of the crimes of 
which he was accused. After this he decided 
to settle down a second time. He married a 
second wife, Lucrezia, and proceeded to look 
after his family. 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 305 

His elder sons seem to have been true sons of 
their father. The eldest, Giacomo, married 
against his father's will and proceeded to sup- 
port himself by raising money through forging 
obligations. His father brought several law- 
suits against him, in one of which he was accused 
of having plotted against his father's life. The 
second son, Cristoforo, was assassinated, during 
the course of a love affair with the wife of a 
Trasteverine fisherman, by a Corsican, Paolo 
Bruno. The third son, Rocco, was distinguished 
for street adventures. He had a devoted friend, 
Monsignore Querro, a cousin, and important in 
court circles, who helped him carry off all the 
plate and portable property from his father's 
palace. He was finally killed by Amilcare 
Orsini in a night brawl. "The young men met, 
Cenci attended by three armed servants, Orsini 
by two. A single pass of rapiers, in which 
Rocco was pierced through the right eye ended 
the affair," as this midnight tragedy has tersely 
been related. 

The older sons were so bad that Cenci treated 
all the younger ones with strictness, not to say 
cruelty, as is sometimes said. Finally, the fam- 
ily rebelled, and they deliberately decided to 
remove the old count. His wife, Lucrezia, his 
eldest son, Giacomo, his daughter, Beatrice, and 
a younger son, Bernardo, were all implicated in 



306 BROWNING'S ITALY 

the crime, which was carried out in a particu- 
larly horrible manner. On the night of Sep- 
tember 9, at the Rocca di Petrella in the Abruzzi, 
two hired cutthroats, Olimpio Calvetti and 
Marzio Catalani, '* entered the old man's bed- 
room, drove a nail into his head and flung the 
corpse out from the gallery." It was some time 
before suspicion fell upon his own family, but 
finally the government of Naples, where, and at 
Rome, the sons had taken out letters for the 
administration of their father's property, — was 
informed that proceedings ought to be taken 
against the Cenci and their cutthroats. Against 
Olimpio and Marzio a ban was immediately 
published. Giacomo and his friend Querro, 
with the assistance of three desperados, fell upon 
Olimpio and killed him, but Marzio was arrested 
and his evidence caused the arrest of the Cenci. 
It seems that they were tortured and none of 
them denied the accusation, so that the only 
course left to their advocates was to plead exten- 
uating circumstances, and thus arose the Beatrice 
"legend." 

Although the episode upon which Browning's 
great masterpiece, "The Ring and the Book" 
is founded did not occur until the end of the 
seventeenth century, a state of society still ex- 
isted at that time in which wife-murder under 
certain circumstances was condoned. What such 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 307 

circumstances might be and how a despicable 
nature might misinterpret facts and manufacture 
others in order to give himself an excuse under 
the law for murdering his wife, is the story told 
in ''The Ring and the Book." 

In the poem itself, Browning describes how 
he found the old square yellow book, containing 
the records of this crime and the trial. In those 
days before newspapers, the "Relations" of 
things of this nature were frequently printed in 
books and pamphlets. The information in the 
old square yellow book was supplemented by 
an old pamphlet which Browning found in 
London. The account of the finding of the 
book is well worth quoting for the vivid picture 
it gives of a street scene in Florence to-day, as 
well as the description of the methods by which 
justice was enforced in the seventeenth century. 

"That memorable day, 
(June was the month, Lorenzo named the Square), 
I leaned a little and overlooked my prize 
By the low railing round the fountain-source 
Close to the statue, where a step descends; 
While clinked the cans of copper, as stooped and rose 
Thick-ankled girls who brimmed them, and made place 
For marketmen glad to pitch basket down. 
Dip a broad melon-leaf that holds the wet. 
And whisk their faded fresh. And on I read 
Presently, though my path grew perilous 
Between the outspread straw-work, piles of plait 



308 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Soon to be flapping, each o'er two black eyes 

And swathe of Tuscan hair, on festas fine: 

Through fire-irons, tribes of tongs, shovels in sheaves. 

Skeleton bedsteads, wardrobe-drawers agape. 

Rows of tall slim brass lamps with dangling gear, — 

And worse, cast clothes a-sweetening in the sun: 

None of them took my eye from off my prize. 

Still read I on, from written title-page 

To written index, on, through street and street. 

At the Strozzi, at the Pillar, at the Bridge; 

Till, by the time I stood at home again 

In Casa Guidi by Felice Church, 

Under the doorway where the black begins 

With the first stone-slab of the staircase cold, 

I had mastered the contents, knew the whole truth 

Gathered together, bound up in this book, 

Print three-fifths, written supplement the rest, 

'Romana Homicidiorum* — nay, 

Better translate — 'A Roman murder-case: 

Position of the entire criminal cause 

Of Guido Franceschini nobleman, 

With certain Four the cutthroats in his pay. 

Tried, all five, and found guilty and put to death 

By heading or hanging as befitted ranks. 

At Rome on February Twenty Two, 

Since our salvation Sixteen Ninety Eight: 

Wherein it is disputed if, and when. 

Husbands may kill adulterous wives, yet 'scape 

The customary forfeit.' 

Word for word, 
So ran the title-page: murder or else 
Legitimate punishment of the other crime. 
Accounted murder by mistake, — just that 
And no more, in a Latin cramp enough 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 309 

When the law had her eloquence to launch. 
But interfilleted with Italian streaks 
When testimony stooped to mother-tongue, — 
That, was this old square yellow book about. 

Now, as the ingot, ere the ring was forged. 

Lay gold, (beseech you, hold that figure fast!) 

So, in this book lay absolutely truth, 

Fanciless fact, the documents indeed. 

Primary lawyer-pleadings for, against. 

The aforesaid Five; real summed-up circumstance 

Adduced in proof of these on either side. 

Put forth and printed, as the practice was. 

At Rome, in the Apostolic Chamber's type. 

And so submitted to the eye o' the Court 

Presided over by His Reverence 

Rome's Governor and Criminal Judge, — the trial 

Itself, to all intents, being then as now 

Here in the book and nowise out of it; 

Seeing, there properly was no judgment-bar. 

No bringing of accuser and accused, 

And whoso judged both parties, face to face 

Before some court, as we conceive of courts. 

There was a Hall of Justice; that came last: 

For Justice had a chamber by the hall 

Where she took evidence first, summed up the same, 

Then sent accuser and accused alike. 

In person of the advocate of each. 

To weigh its worth, thereby arrange, array 

The battle. 'Twas the so-styled Fisc began, 

Pleaded (and since he only spoke in print 

The printed voice of him lives now as then) 

The public Prosecutor — ' Murder's proved ; 

With five . . . what we call quahties of bad. 



310 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Worse, worst, and yet worse still, and still worse yet; 

Crest over crest crowning the cockatrice, 

That beggar hell's regalia to enrich 

Count Guido Franceschini : punish him!* 

Thus was the paper put before the court 

In the next stage, (no noisy work at all,) 

To study at ease. In due time like reply 

Came from the so-styled Patron of the Poor, 

Official mouthpiece of the five accused 

Too poor to fee a better, — Guido's luck 

Or else his fellows', — which, I hardly know, — 

An outbreak as of wonder at the world, 

A fury-fit of outraged innocence, 

A passion of betrayed simplicity: 

'Punish Count Guido? For what crime, what hint 

O' the color of a crime, inform us first! 

Reward him rather! Recognize, we say. 

In the deed done, a righteous judgment dealt! 

All conscience and all courage, — there's our Count 

Charactered in a word; and, what's more strange, 

He had companionship in privilege. 

Found four courageous conscientious friends: 

Absolve, applaud all five, as props of law, 

Sustainers of society! — perchance 

A trifle over-hasty with the hand 

To hold her tottering ark, had tumbled else; 

But that's a splendid fault whereat we wink. 

Wishing your cold correctness sparkled so!' 

Thus paper second followed paper first, 

Thus did the two join issue — nay, the four. 

Each pleader having an adjunct. 'True, he killed 

— So to speak — in a certain sort — his wife, 

But laudably, since thus it happed!' quoth one: 

Whereat, more witness and the case postponed. 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 311 

*Thus it happed not, since thus he did the deed, 

And proved himself thereby portentousest 

Of cutthroats and a prodigy of crime. 

As the woman that he slaughtered was a saint. 

Martyr and miracle!* quoted the other to match: 

Again, more witness, and the case postponed. 

*A miracle, ay — of lust and impudence; 

Hear my new reasons:' interposed the first: 

* — Coupled with more of mine!' pursued his peer. 

* Beside, the precedents, the authorities!' 

From both at once a cry with an echo, that! 

That was a firebrand at each fox's tail 

Unleashed in a cornfield: soon spread flare enough, 

As hurtled thither and there heaped themselves 

From earth's four corners, all authority 

And precedent for putting wives to death. 

Or letting wives live, sinful, as they seem. 

How legislated, now, in this respect, 

Solon and his Athenians ? Quote the code 

Of Romulus and Rome! Justinian speak! 

Nor modern Baldo, Bartolo be dumb! 

The Roman voice was potent, plentiful; 

Cornelia de Sicariis hurried to help 

Pompeia de Parriddiis; Julia de 

Something-or-other jostled Lex this-and-that; 

King Solomon confirmed Apostle Paul; 

That nice decision of Dolabella, eh ? 

That pregnant instance of Theodoric, oh! 

Down to that choice example vElian gives 

(An instance I find much insisted on) 

Of the elephant who, brute-beast though he were. 

Yet understood and punished on the spot 

His master's naughty spouse and faithless friend; 

A true tale which has edified each child, 



312 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Much more shall flourish favored by our court! 
Pages of proof this way, and that way proof, 
And always — once again the case postponed. 

Thus wrangled, brangled, jangled they a month, 

— Only on paper, pleadings all in print. 

Nor ever was, except i' the brains of men. 

More noise by word of mouth than you hear now — 

Till the court cut all short with 'Judged, your cause. 

Receive our sentence! Praise God! We pronounce 

Count Guido devilish and damnable: 

His wife Pompilia in thought, word and deed. 

Was perfect pure, he murdered her for that: 

As for the Four who helped the One, all Five — 

Why, let employer and hirelings share alike. 

In guilt and guilt's reward, the death their due!' 

So was the trial at end, do you suppose ? 

'Guilty you find him, death you doom him to? 

Ay, were not Guido, more than needs, a priest, 

Priest and to spare!' — this was a shot reserved: 

I learn this from epistles which begin 

Here where the print ends, — see the pen and ink 

Of the advocate, the ready at a pinch ! — 

*My client boasts the clerkly privilege. 

Has taken minor orders many enough, 

Shows still sufficient chrism upon his pate 

To neutralize a blood-stain: presbytery 

Primce tonsurce, subdiaconuSy 

Sacerdos, so he slips from underneath 

Your power, the temporal, sHdes inside the robe 

Of mother Church; to her we make appeal 

By the Pope, the Church's head!' 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 313 

A parlous plea, 
Put in with noticeable effect, it seems: 
'Since straight,' — resumes the zealous orator. 
Making a friend acquainted with the facts, — 
*Once the word " clericahty" let fall. 
Procedure stopped and freer breath was drawn 
By all considerate and responsible Rome.* 
Quality took the decent part, of course; 
Held by the husband, who was noble too: 
Or, for the matter of that, a churl would side 
With too-refined susceptibihty. 
And honor which, tender in the extreme. 
Stung to the quick, must roughly right itself 
At all risks, not sit still and whine for law 
As a Jew would, if you squeezed him to the wall, 
Brisk-trotting through the Ghetto. Nay, it seems, 
Even the Emperor's Envoy had his say 
To say on the subject; might not see, unmoved, 
Civility menaced throughout Christendom 
By too harsh measure dealt her champion here. 
Lastly, what made all safe, the Pope was kind. 
From his youth up, reluctant to take life, 
If mercy might be just and yet show grace; 
Much more unlikely then, in extreme age. 
To take a life the general sense bade spare. 
*T was plain that Guido would go scatheless yet. 

But human promise, oh, how short of shine! 
How topple down the piles of hope we rear! 
How history proves . . . nay, read Herodotus! 
Suddenly starting from a nap, as it were, 
A dog-sleep with one shut, one open orb, 
Cried the Pope's great self, — Innocent by name 
And nature too, and eighty-six years old, 



314 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Antonio Pignatelli of Naples, Pope 

Who had trod many lands, known many deeds, 

Probed many hearts, beginning with his own. 

And now was far in readiness for God, 

'T was he who first bade leave those souls in peace, 

Those Jansenists, re-nicknamed Molinists, 

('Gainst whom the cry went, like a frowsy tune. 

Tickling men's ears — the sect for a quarter of an hour 

I' the teeth of the world which clown-like, loves to chew 

Be it but a straw 'twixt work and whistling-while, 

Taste some vituperation, bite away. 

Whether at marjoran-spring or garlic-clove, 

Aught it may sport with, spoil, and then spit forth,) 

* Leave them alone,' bade he, 'those Molinists! 

Who may have other light than we perceive. 

Or why is it the whole world hates them thus ? * 

Also he peeled off that last scandal-rag 

Of Nepotism; and so observed the poor 

That men would merrily say, 'Halt, deaf and blind. 

Who feed on fat things, leave the master's self 

To gather up the fragments of his feast. 

These be the nephews of Pope Innocent! — 

His own meal costs but five carlines a day, 

Poor-priest's allowance, for he claims no more.' 

— He cried of a sudden, this great good old Pope, 

When they appealed in last resort to him, 

'I have mastered the whole matter: I nothing doubt. 

Though Guido stood forth priest from head to heel, 

Instead of, as alleged, a piece of one, — 

And further, were he, from the tonsured scalp 

To the sandaled sole of him, my son and Christ's. 

Instead of touching us by finger-tip 

As you assert, and pressing up so close 

Only to set a blood-smutch on our robe, — 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 315 

I and Christ would renounce all right in him. 
Am I not Pope, and presently to die. 
And busied how to render my account. 
And shall I wait a day ere I decide 
On doing or not doing justice here ? 
Cut off his head to-morrow by this time. 
Hang up his four mates, two on either hand, 
And end one business more!' 

So said, so done — 
Rather so writ, for the old Pope bade this, 
I find, with his particular chirograph, 
His own no such infirm hand, Friday night; 
And next day, February Twenty Two, 
Since our salvation Sixteen Ninety Eight, 
— Not at the proper head-and-hanging-place 
On bridge-foot close by Castle Angelo, 
Where custom somewhat staled the spectacle, 
('T was not so well i' the way of Rome, beside, 
The noble Rome, the Rome of Guido's rank) 
But at the city's newer gayer end, — 
The cavalcading promenading place 
Beside the gate and opposite the church 
Under the Pincian gardens green with Spring, 
'Neath the obelisk 'twixt the fountains in the Square, 
Did Guido and his fellows find their fate, 
All Rome for witness, and — my writer adds — 
Remonstrant in its universal grief. 
Since Guido had the suffrage of all Rome." 

The contents of this book have been reduced 
by Mrs. Orr to an abstract of the story which 
she enlarged again with quotations from the 
pamphlet found in London. Though this is 



316 BROWNING'S ITALY 

easily accessible either in Mrs. Orr's Handbook 
or in the Camberwell edition of Browning, it is 
given here in order that the subject under dis- 
cussion may be as fully illustrated as possible. 

"There lived in Rome in 1679 Pietro and Violante Com- 
parini, an elderly couple of the middle class, fond of show 
and good living, and who in spite of a fair income had run 
considerably into debt. They were, indeed, at the period 
in question, in receipt of a papal bounty, employed in the 
relief of the needy who did not Hke to beg. Creditors were 
pressing and only one expedient suggested itself: they must 
have a child; and thus enable themselves to draw on their 
capital, now tied up for the benefit of an unknown heir-at- 
law. The wife conceived this plan and also carried it out, 
without taking her husband into her confidence. She secured 
beforehand the infant of a poor and not very reputable 
woman, announced her expectation, half miraculous at her 
past fifty years, and became, to all appearance, the mother 
of a girl, the Francesca Pompilia of the story. 

"When Pompilia had reached the age of thirteen, there 
was also in Rome Count Guido Franceschini, an impover- 
ished nobleman of Arezzo and the elder of three brothers, 
of whom the second. Abate Paola, and the third, Canon 
Girolamo, also play some part in the story. Count Guido 
himself belonged to the minor ranks of the priesthood and 
had spent his best years in seeking preferment in it. Pre- 
ferment had not come and the only means of building up 
the family fortunes in his own person, was now a moneyed 
wife. He was poor, fifty years old, and personally un- 
attractive. A contemporary chronicle describes him as 
short, thin, and pale, and with a projecting nose. He had 
nothing to offer but his rank; but in the case of a very obscure 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 317 

heiress, this might suflSce, and such a one seemed to present 
herself in Pompilia Comparini. He heard of her at the 
local center of gossip, the barber's shop; received an exag- 
gerated estimate of her dowry and made proposals for her 
hand; being supported in his suit by the Abate Paul. They 
did not, on their side, understate the advantages of the con- 
nection. They are, indeed, said to have given as their 
yearly income a sum exceeding their capital, and Violante 
was soon dazzled into consenting to it. Old Pietro was more 
wary. He made inquiries as to the state of the Count's for- 
tune, and declined, under plea of his daughter's extreme 
youth, to think of him as a son-in-law. 

"Violante pretended submission, secretly led Pompilia to 
a church, the very church of San Lorenzo in Lucina, where 
four years later the murdered bodies of all three were to be 
displayed, and brought her back as Count Guido's wife. 
Pietro could only accept the accomplished fact; and he so 
far resigned himself to it that he paid down an instalment 
of his daughter's dowry, and made up the deficiency by 
transferring to the newly married couple all that he actually 
possessed. This left him no choice but to hve under their 
roof, and the four removed together to the Franceschini abode 
at Arezzo. The arrangement proved disastrous; and at the 
end of a few months Pietro and Violante were glad to return 
to Rome, though with empty pockets, and on money lent them 
for the journey by their son-in-law. 

"We have conflicting testimony as to the cause of this 
rupture. The Governor of Arezzo, writing to the Abate 
Paul in Rome, lays all the blame of it on the Comparini, 
whom he taxes with vulgar and aggressive behavior; and Mr. 
Browning readily admits that at the beginning there may 
have been faults on their side. But popular judgment, as 
well as the balance of evidence, were in favor of the opposite 
view; and curious details are given by Pompilia and by a 



318 BROWNING'S ITALY 

servant of the family, a sworn witness on Pompilia's trial, 
of the petty cruelties and privations to which both parents 
and child were subjected. 

"So much, at all events, was clear; Violante's sin had over- 
taken her; and it now occurred to her, apparently for the 
first time, to cast off its burden by confession. The moment 
was propitious, for the Pope had proclaimed a jubilee in 
honor of his eightieth year and absolution was to be had for 
the asking. But the Church in this case made conditions. 
Absolution must be preceded by atonement. Violante must 
restore to her legal heirs that of which her pretended mother- 
hood had defrauded them. The first step toward this was 
to reveal the fraud to her husband; and Pietro lost no time in 
making use of the revelation. He repudiated Pompilia, and 
with her all claims on her husband's part. The case was 
carried into court. The Court decreed a compromise. 
Pietro appealed from the decree, and the question remained 
unsettled. 

"The chief sufferer by these proceedings was Pompilia 
herself. She already had reason to dread her husband as a 
tyrant — he to dislike her as a victim; and his discovery of 
her base birth, w^ith the threatened loss of the greater part of 
her dowry, could only result, with such a man, in increased 
aversion towards her. From this moment his one aim seems 
to have been to get rid of his wife, but in such a manner as 
not to forfeit any pecuniary advantage he might still derive 
from their union. This could only be done by convicting her 
of infidelity; and he attacked her so furiously and so per- 
sistently, on the subject of a certain Canon Giuseppe Capon- 
sacchi, whom she barely knew, but whose attentions he 
declared her to have challenged, that at last she fled from 
Arezzo with this very man. 

"She had appealed for protection against her husband's 
violence to the Archbishop and to the Governor. She had 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 319 

striven to enlist the aid of his brother-in-law, Conti. She 
had implored a priest in confession to write for her to her 
parents and induce them to fetch her away. But the whole 
town was in the interest of the Franceschini, or in dread of 
them. Her prayers were useless, and Caponsacchi, whom 
she had heard of as a 'resolute man,' appeared her last 
resource. He was, as she knew, contemplating a journey to 
Rome; an opportunity presented itself for speaking to him 
from her window, or her balcony, and she persuaded him, 
though not without difficulty, to assist her escape and con- 
duct her to her old home. On a given night she slipped away 
from her husband's side and joined the Canon where he 
awaited her with a carriage. They traveled day and night 
till they reached Castelnuovo, a village within four hours of 
the journey's end. There they were compelled to rest, and 
there also the husband overtook them. They were not to- 
gether at the moment; but the fact of the elopement was 
patent; and if Franceschini had killed his wife there, in the 
supposed excitement of the discovery, the law might have 
dealt leniently with him. But it suited him best for the time 
being to let her live. He procured the arrest of the fugitives, 
and after a short confinement on the spot, they were conveyed 
to the New Prisons in Rome (Carceri Nuove) and tried on the 
charge of adultery. 

"It is impossible not to beheve that Count Guido had been 
working toward this end. Pompilia's verbal communications 
with Caponsacchi had been supplemented by letters, now 
brought to him in her name, now thrown or let down from 
her window as he passed the house. They were written, as 
he said, on the subject of the flight, and, as he also said, he 
burned them as soon as read, not doubting their authenticity. 
But Pompiha declared, on examination, that she could neither 
write nor read; and setting aside all presumption of her 
veracity, this was more than probable. The writer of the 



320 BROWNING'S ITALY 

letters must, therefore, have been the Count, or some one 
employed by him for the purpose. He now completed the 
intrigue by producing eighteen or twenty more of a very in- 
criminating character, which he declared to have been left 
by the prisoners at Castelnuovo; and these were not only 
disclaimed with every appearance of sincerity by both the 
persons accused, but bore the marks of forgery within them- 
selves. 

"Pompilia and Caponsacchi answered all the questions 
addressed to them simply and firmly; and though their state- 
ments did not always coincide, these were calculated on the 
whole to create a moral conviction of their innocence; the 
facts on which they disagreed being of little weight. But 
moral conviction was not legal proof; the question of false 
testimony does not seem to have been even raised; and the 
Court found itself in a dilemma, which it acknowledged in 
the following way: it was decreed that for his complicity in ' the 
flight and deviation of Francesca Comparini,' and too great 
intimacy with her, Caponsacchi should be banished for three 
years to Civita Vecchia; and that Pompilia, on her side, 
should be relegated, for the time being, to a convent. That 
is to say the prisoners were pronounced guilty; and a merely 
nominal punishment was inflicted upon them. 

"The records of this trial contain almost everything of 
biographical or even dramatic interest in the original book. 
They are, so far as they go, the complete history of the case; 
and the result of the trial, ambiguous as it was, supplied the 
only argument on which an even formal defense of the sub- 
sequent murder could be based. The substance of these 
records appears in full in Mr. Browning's work; and his 
readers can judge for themselves whether the letters which 
were intended to substantiate Pompilia's guilt, could, even if 
she had possessed the power of writing, have been written by 
a woman so young and so uncultured as herself. They will 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 321 

also see that the Count's plot against his wife was still more 
deeply laid than the above-mentioned circumstances attest. 

"Count Guido was of course not satisfied. He wanted 
a divorce; and he continued to sue for it by means of his 
brother, the Abate Paul, then residing in Rome; but before 
long he received news which was destined to change his plans. 
Pompiha was about to become a mother; and in consideration 
of her state she had been removed from the convent to her 
paternal home, where she was still to be ostensibly a prisoner. 
The Comparini then occupied a small villa outside one of 
the city gates. A few months later, in this secluded spot, 
the Countess Franceschini gave birth to a son, whom her 
parents lost no time in conveying to a place of concealment 
and safety. The murder took place a fortnight after this 
event. I give the rest of the story in an almost literal trans- 
lation from a contemporary narrative, which was published 
immediately after the Count's execution, in the form of a 
pamphlet * — the then current substitute for a newspaper. 

"Being oppressed by various feelings, and stimulated to 
revenge, now by honor, now by self-interest, yielding to his 
wicked thoughts, he (Count Guido) devised a plan for kill- 
ing his wife and her nominal parents; and having enlisted 
in his enterprise four other ruflSans,' — laborers on his 
property, — started with them from Arezzo, and on Christmas- 
eve arrived in Rome and took up his abode at Ponte Milvio, 
where there was a villa belonging to his brother and where 
he concealed himself with his followers till the fitting moment 
for the execution of his design had arrived. Having there- 
fore watched from thence all the movements of the Com- 
parini family, he proceeded on Thursday, the 2d of January, 
at one o'clock of the night,^ with his companions to the Com- 

* This pamphlet has supplied Mr, Browning with some of his most 
curious facts. It fell into his hands in London. 
2 The first hour after sunset. 



322 BROWNING'S ITALY 

parini's house; and having left Biagio Agostinelli and Do- 
menico Gambasini at the gate, he instructed one of the 
others to knock at the house-door, which was opened to him 
on his declaring that he brought a letter from Canon Capon- 
sacchi at Civita Vecchia. The wicked Franceschini, sup- 
ported by two other of his assassins, instantly threw himself 
on Violante Comparini, who had opened the door, and flung 
her dead upon the ground. Pomilia, in this extremity, ex- 
tinguished the light, thinking thus to elude her assassins, 
and made for the door of a neighboring blacksmith, crying 
for help. Seeing Franceschini provided with a lantern, she 
ran and hid herself under the bed, but being dragged from 
under it, the unhappy woman was barbarously put to death 
by twenty-two wounds from the hand of her husband, who, 
not content with this, dragged her to the feet of Comparini, 
who, being similarly wounded by another of the assassins, 
was crying, 'confession.* 

"At the noise of this horrible massacre people rushed to 
the spot; but the villains succeeded in flying, leaving behind, 
however, in their haste, one his cloak, and Franceschini his 
cap, which was the means of betraying them. The unfor- 
tunate Francesca Pompilia, in spite of all the wounds with 
which she had been mangled, having implored of the Holy 
Virgin the grace of being allowed to confess, obtained it, 
since she was able to survive for a short time and describe the 
horrible attack. She also related that after the deed, her 
husband asked the assassin who had helped him to murder 
her if she were really dead; and being assured that she was, 
quickly rejoined, let us lose no time, but return to the vineyard;^ 
and so they escaped. Meanwhile the police (Forza) having 
been called, it arrived with its chief oflScer (Bargello), and 
a confessor was soon procured, together with a surgeon 

^ "Villa" is often called "vineyard" or "vigna," on account of 
the vineyard attached to it. 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 323 

who devoted himself to the treatment of the unfortunate 
girl. 

"Monsignore the Governor, being informed of the event, 
immediately despatched Captain Patrizj to arrest the culprits, 
but on reaching the vineyard the police officers discovered 
that they were no longer there, but had gone toward the high 
road an hour before. Patrizj pursued his journey without 
rest, and having arrived at the inn was told by the landlord 
that Franceschini had insisted upon obtaining horses, which 
were refused to him because he was not supplied with the 
necessary order; and had proceeded therefore on foot with 
his companions toward Baccano. Continuing his march 
and taking the necessary precautions, he arrived at the 
Merluzza inn, and there discovered the assassins, who were 
speedily arrested, their knives still stained with blood, a 
hundred and fifty scudi in coin being also found in Frances- 
chini 's person. The arrest, however, cost Patrizj his life, 
for he had heated himself too much, and having received a 
slight wound, died in a few days. 

"The knife of Franceschini was on the Genoese pattern, 
and triangular; and was notched at the edge, so that it could 
not be withdrawn from the wounded flesh without lacerating 
it in such a manner as to render the wound incurable. 

"The criminals being taken to Ponte Milvio, they went 
through a first examination at the inn there at the hands of 
the notaries and judges sent thither for the purpose, and the 
chief points of a confession were obtained from them. 

" When the capture of the delinquents was known in Rome, 
a multitude of the people hastened to see them as they were 
conveyed bound on horses into the city. It is related that 
Franceschini having asked one of the police officers in the 
course of the journey how ever the crime had been discovered^ 
and being told that it had been revealed by his wife, whom 
they had found still living y was almost stupefied by the 



324 BROWNING'S ITALY 

intelligence. Toward twenty-three o'clock (the last hour 
before sunset) they arrived at the prisons. A certain Fran- 
cesco Pasquini, of Citta di Castello, and Allessandro Baldeschi, 
of the same town, both twenty-years of age, were the assist- 
ants of Guido Franceschini in the murder of the Comparini; 
and Gambasini and Agnostinelli were those who stood on 
guard at the gate. 

"Meanwhile the corpses of the assassinated Comparini 
were exposed at San Lorenzo in Lucina, but so disfigured, 
and especailly Franceschini 's wife, by their wounds in the 
face, that they were no longer recognizable. The unhappy 
Francesca, after taking the sacrament, forgiving her mur- 
derers, under seventeen years of age, and after having made 
her will, died on the sixth day of the month, which was that 
of the Epiphany; and was able to clear herself of all the 
calumnies which her husband had brought against her. 
The surprise of the people in seeing these corpses was great, 
from the atrocity of the deed, which made one really shudder, 
seeing two septuagenarians and a girl of seventeen so miser- 
ably put to death. 

"The trial proceeding meanwhile, many papers were 
drawn up on the subject, bringing forward all the most 
incriminating circumstances of this horrible massacre; and 
others also were written for the defense with much erudition, 
especially by the advocate of the poor, a certain Monsignor 
Spreti, which had the effect of postponing the sentence; also 
because Baldeschi persisted in denial though he was tortured 
with the rope and twice fainted under it. At last he con- 
fessed, and so did the others, who also revealed the fact that 
they had intended in due time to murder Franceschini him- 
self, and take his money, because he had not kept his promise 
of paying them the moment they should have left Rome. 

"On the twenty-second of February there appeared on 
the Piazza del Popolo a large platform with a guillotine and 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 325 

two gibbets, on which the culprits were to be executed. 
Many stands were constructed for the convenience of those 
who were curious to witness such a terrible act of justice; 
and the concourse was so great that some windows fetched 
as much as six dollars each. At eight o'clock Franceschini 
and his companions were summoned to their death, and 
having been placed in the Consorteria and there assisted by 
the Abate Panciatici and the Cardinal Acciajuoli, forthwith 
disposed themselves to die well. At twenty o'clock the Com- 
pany of Death and the Misericordia reached the dungeons 
and the condemned were let down, placed on separate carts, 
and conveyed to the place of execution." 

"It is further stated that Franceschini showed the most in- 
trepidity and cold blood of them all, and that he died with 
the name of Jesus on his lips. He wore the same clothes in 
which he had committed the crime: a close fitting garment 
(juste-aii-corps) of gray cloth, a loose black shirt (camiciuola) , 
SL goat's hair cloak, a white hat, and a cotton cap, 

"The attempt made by him to defraud his accomplices, 
poor and helpless as they were, has been accepted by Mr. 
Browning as an indication of character which forbade any 
lenient interpretations of his previous acts. Pompilia, on 
the other hand, is absolved, by all the circumstances of her 
protracted death, from any doubt of her innocence which 
previous evidence might have raised. Ten different persons 
attest, not only her denial of any offence against her husband, 
but, what is of far more value, her Christian gentleness, and 
absolute maiden modesty, under the sufferings of her last 
days, and the medical treatment to which they subjected her. 
Among the witnesses are a doctor of theology (Abate Liberato 
Barberito), the apothecary and his assistant and a number 
of monks or priests; the first and most circumstantial deposi- 
tion being that of an Augustine, Fra Celestino Angelo di 
Sant' Anna, and concluding with these words: 'I do not say 



326 BROWNING'S ITALY 

more, for fear of being taxed with partiality. I know well 
that God alone can examine the heart. But I know also 
that from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks; and 
that my great St. Augustine says: "As the life was, so is its 
end."' 

"It needed all the evidence in Pompilia's favor to secure 
the full punishment of her murderer, strengthened, as he 
was, by social and ecclesiastical position, and by the acknowl- 
edged rights of marital jealousy. We find curious proof of 
the sympathies which might have prejudiced his wife's cause, 
in the marginal notes appended to her depositions, and which 
repeatedly introduce them as lies. 

*F. Lie concerning the arrival at Castelnuovo.* 

* H. New lies to the ejfed that she did not receive the lover* s 
letters, and does not know how to write,'' etc., etc.* 

"The significant question, 'Whether and when a husband 
may kill his unfaithful wife,' was in the present case not 
thought to be finally answered till an appeal had been made 
from the ecclesiastical tribunal to the Pope himself. It was 
Innocent XII who virtually sentenced Count Franceschini 
and his four accomplices to death." 

Browning has developed each one of the im- 
portant characters, Guido, Pompiha, Capon- 
sacchi, the two lawyers, the Pope, in separate 
monologues, as well as giving three views of 
public opinion in ** Half -Rome," "The Other 
Half-Rome" and "Tertium Quid." 

The panorama of human life centering around 

* It is difficult to reconcile this explicit denial of Pompilia's 
statements with the belief in her implied in her merely nominal 
punishment: unless we look on it as a part of the formal condem- 
nation which circumstances seemed to exact. 




O 

o" 

o 
a, 
O 



't:, N 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 327 

a few strong personalities that results is, of 
course, far more than a portrayal of social con- 
ditions and individual life as it existed in Rome 
at that time; it becomes a sort of phantasy of 
universal human nature ranging from the saint- 
like yet wholly human beauty of Pompilia to the 
inhuman monster Guido, with all gradations of 
weakness and of strength, of wisdom and of 
intellect lying between. 

Although typical human nature is everywhere 
depicted in this poem, opinions and actions are 
deeply colored by the environment as reflected 
in the part played by the church, by law, and 
by the social usage of the time. Very decided 
"local" color is also given by the constant ref- 
erences to the doctrines of Miguel Molinos, a 
Spanish priest who was the founder of a theology 
called "Quietism." His principles divided the 
Rome of the day as positively as the rights and 
wrongs of the Guido trial divide it in Browning's 
poem. 

In 1675 he published his "Spiritual Guide," 
which appealed so strongly to many of the 
religious minds of the time that the Church felt 
it necessary to take measures against Molinos 
and his followers. Quotations from this re- 
markable book will give the best idea of his 
ideals, which, though lofty in conception seem 
to have been open to misinterpretations that led 



328 BROWNING'S ITALY 

some of his followers into rather devious paths 
and brought accusations upon Molinos himself 
which were probably entirely unfounded. 

"The Divine Majesty knows very well that it 
is not by the means of one's own ratiocination 
or industry that a soul draws near to Him and 
understands the divine truths, but rather by 
silent and humble resignation. The patriarch 
Noah gave a great instance of this, who, after 
he had been by all men reckoned a fool, floating 
in the middle of a raging sea wherewith the 
whole world was overflowed, without sails or 
oars, and environed by wild beasts that were 
shut up in the ark, walked by faith alone, not 
knowing nor understanding what God had a 
mind to do with him." 

Virtues, according to Molinos, were not to be 
acquired by much abstinence, maceration of the 
body, mortification of the senses, rigorous pen- 
ances, wearing sackcloth, chastising the flesh 
by discipline, going in quest of sensible affections 
and fervent sentiments, thinking to find God in 
them. Molinos regarded such practises as the 
way of beginners. He called it the external way 
and declared it could never conduct them to 
perfection, "nor so much as one step toward it, 
as experience shows in many, who, after fifty 
years of this external exercise, are void of 
God, and full of themselves (of spiritual pride), 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 329 

having nothing of a spiritual man but the 



name." 



"The truly spiritual men, on the other hand, 
are those whom the Lord, in his infinite mercy, 
has called from the outward way in which they 
had been wont to exercise themselves; who had 
retired into the interior part of their souls; who 
had resigned themselves into the hand of God, 
totally putting off and forgetting themselves, and 
always going with an elevated spirit to the 
presence of the Lord, by means of pure faith, 
without image, form, or figure, but with great 
assurance founded in tranquillity and rest in- 
ternal. These blessed and sublimated souls take 
no pleasure in anything of the world, but in 
contempt of it, in being alone, forsaken and 
forgotten by everybody, keeping always in their 
hearts a great lowliness and contempt of them- 
selves; always humbled in the depths of their 
own unworthiness and vileness. In the same 
manner they are always quiet, serene and even- 
minded, whether under extraordinary graces and 
favor, or under the most rigorous and bitter 
torments. No new^s makes them afraid. No 
success makes them glad. Tribulations never 
disturb them, nor the interior, continual Divine 
communications make them vain and conceited; 
they always remain full of holy and filial fear, 
in a wonderful peace, constancy, and serenity." 



330 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Again "The Lord has repose nowhere but in 
quiet souls, and in those in which the fire of 
tribulation and temptation hath burned up the 
dregs of passions, and with the bitter water of 
aj63ictions hath washed off the filthy spots of 
inordinate appetites ; in a word, this Lord reposes 
only where quiet reigns and seK-love is ban- 
ished." 

"By the way of nothing thou must come to 
lose thyself in God (which is the last degree of 
perfection), and happy wilt thou be if thou canst 
so lose thyself. In this same shop of nothing, 
simplicity is made, interior and infused recollec- 
tion is possessed, quiet is obtained, and the 
heart is cleansed from all imperfection." 

Molinos had been in Rome some little time 
when he published this book (1675), which im- 
mediately gained him great popularity. It be- 
sides received the formal approbation of five 
famous doctors, four of them Inquisitors and 
one a Jesuit, and within six years passed through 
twenty editions, in most European tongues. 
Bigelow in his book on Molinos describes how 
"Its author's acquaintance and friendship was 
sought by people in the greatest credit, not only 
at Rome, but in other parts of Europe by cor- 
respondence. Among his followers were three 
followers of the Oratoire, who soon after re- 
ceived cardinal's hats, and even the popes who 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 331 

successively occupied the pontifical chair during 
his residence in Rome took particular notice of 
him. The Cardinal Odescalchi was no sooner 
raised to the pontificate as Innocent XI, than he 
provided Molinos with lodgings at the Vatican, 
and such was his esteem for him that he is said 
to have formed the purpose of making him a 
cardinal, and to have actually selected him for 
a time as his spiritual director." 

It is of interest to note that the Pope in the 
"Ring and the Book" is certainly touched with 
the enlightened views of Molinos, though it was 
really Innocent XII who passed sentence upon 
Guido. Browning seems to have combined in 
his good old pope characteristics belonging to 
both of these pontiffs. 

Among his distinguished followers there was 
none more conspicuous than Queen Christina of 
Sweden, who at this time was a great lioness at 
Rome, because of her abdication. She had given 
up her crown in order that she might be free to 
enter the Roman church, and upon doing so she 
took Molinos for her especial guide, and is de- 
scribed as making his gifts and his piety a favor- 
ite theme of her extensive correspondence. 
Cardinal d'Estrees, even, the representative of 
Louis XIV, thought it worth while to be in the 
fashion and identify himself with the movement, 
and went so far as to put Molinos in corre- 



332 BROWNING'S ITALY 

spondence with important people in France. 
Later, Louis XIV and d'Estrees were chiefly 
responsible, upon the instigation of the 
Jesuits, for bringing him under the ban of 
the Inquisition. Another important follower 
was Father Petruci, who wrote many letters, 
and one or more treatises in favor of the con- 
templative life as taught by Molinos for the 
edification of nuns. 

We get a breath of the uprising against Moli- 
nos and his doctrines which was to come, in a 
letter of Bishop Gilbert Burnet, who being in 
Italy in 1685 wrote home, "The new method of 
Molinos doth so much prevail at Naples that it 
is believed he hath above twenty thousand fol- 
lowers in the city. He hath writ a book which 
is entitled II Guida Spirituale, which is a short 
abstract of the Mystical Divinity, the substance 
of the whole is reduced to this, that, in our 
prayers and other devotions, the best methods 
are to retire the mind from all gross images, 
and so to form an act of Faith, and thereby to 
present ourselves before God, and then to sink 
into a silence and cessation of new acts and to 
let God act upon us and so to follow his con- 
duct. This way he prefers to the multiplication 
of many new acts and different forms of devo- 
tion, and he makes small account of corporal 
austerities, and reduces all the exercises of relig- 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 333 

ion to this simplicity of mind. He thinks this 
is not only to be proposed to such as live in 
religious houses, but even to secular persons, 
and by this he hath proposed a great reformation 
of men's minds and manners. He hath many 
priests in Italy, but chiefly in Naples that dis- 
pose those who confess themselves to them to 
follow his methods. The Jesuits have set them- 
selves much against this conduct as foreseeing 
it may weaken the empire that superstition hath 
over the minds of the people; that it may make 
religion become a more plain and simple thing, 
and may also open the door to enthusiasms. 
They also pretend that his conduct is factious 
and seditious, that this may breed a schism in 
the Church. And because he saith in some 
places of his book that the mind may rise up to 
such simplicity in its acts that it may rise in 
some of its devotions to God immediately, 
without contemplating the humanity of Christ, 
they have accused him as intending to lay aside 
the doctrine of Christ's humanity, though it is 
plain that he speaks only of the purity of some 
single acts. Upon all those heads they have set 
themselves much against Molinos, and they have 
also pretended that some of his disciples have 
infused it into their penitents that they may 
go and communicate as they find themselves 
disposed without going first to confession, which 



334 BROWNING'S ITALY 

they thought weakened much the yoke by 
which the priests subdue the consciences of the 
people to their conduct. Yet he was much 
supported, both in the Kingdom of Naples and 
Sicily. He hath also many friends and followers 
at Rome. So the Jesuits, as a provincial of the 
Order assured me, finding they could not ruin 
him by their own force, got a great King, that is 
now extremely in the interests of their Order, 
to interpose and to represent to the Pope the 
danger of such innovations. It is certain the 
Pope understands the matter very little, and that 
he is possessed of a great opinion of Molinos' 
sanctity; yet, upon the complaints of some car- 
dinals that seconded the zeal of the King, he 
and some of his followers were clapt into the 
Inquisition, where they have been now some 
months, but still they are well used, which is 
believed to flow from the good opinion that the 
Pope hath of him, who saith still that 'he may 
err, yet he is still a good man!'" 

It is needless to say that once the Jesuits were 
aroused against Molinos they did not rest until 
they had him convicted of heresies and impris- 
oned for life. He was finally brought to trial 
after twenty-two months' close imprisonment, on 
the third of September, 1687. Among the accu- 
sations against him were that he taught divers 
doctrines which treated as lawful the commission 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE S35 

of various unseemly acts, also with having taught 
the lawfulness of detraction, resentment toward 
one's neighbor, anger, blasphemy, with cursing 
God and the saints, and with execrating the 
consecrated robes. He is said to have assigned 
for his excuse that these acts were the works of 
the devil, who operated as God's instrument, 
and that such violence should be regarded as 
necessary. " Moreover, that they were not called 
to do penance for acts thus provoked, neither 
ought they to praise them nor to confess them, 
but to leave them unpunished, and if scruples 
on account of such acts came, to make no 
account of them because they were done without 
the consent of the higher nature, but solely by 
the force of the devil." 

Such doctrines as these, of course, led to 
accusations of wilful sinning on the one hand, 
and on the other hand later to the doctrine of 
predestination as held by Johannes Agricola and 
Calvin. Molinos, like many other fathers of 
the Church, was seeking for a spiritual truth. 
He was trying to reconcile the omnipotence of 
God with the facts of sin and the human will, 
and the only way he could see out was in the 
utter passivity of man. The more passive a 
man was the more holy he would finally become, 
though God might take him through sin on the 
way to everlasting redemption. Practically it 



336 BROWNING'S ITALY 

is equivalent to abandoning one's self to every 
impulse whether good or bad and having faith 
that the good will finally predominate and that 
even the bad impulses cannot touch the integrity 
of the soul. He emphasized a truth that was 
needed, namely, that sin may be a means of 
development, and in so doing he took religious 
conceptions several steps forwards, but he did 
not see the complementary truth that sin can 
only be a means of development if it is struggled 
against by the active human will. Although 
he was accused of various sins he absolutely 
denied most of the accusations, and his followers 
refused to believe the reports against him. 

It was not, however, a war on the part of the 
Jesuits against evil doing or even heretical doc- 
trines, it was a war against an influence which 
was usurping their own, and which they fore- 
saw would break the power of the Church with 
its machinery of intercession and confession, and 
penitential vows. 

A vivid picture of the scene when the judg- 
ment against Molinos was given is drawn by 
Bigelow : 

"On the morning of the third of September, 
1687, the church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, 
at Rome, was thronged at an early hour. The 
stalls, or palchi, of which a large number had 
been erected for the occasion, were filled by the 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 337 

nobility and with prelates of distinction. The 
college of cardinals, the General of the Inquisi- 
tion and all his officers, were there, too, seated 
opposite each other upon a platform reserved 
for them. Every remaining place to sit or stand 
upon in that vast temple was occupied, for had 
it not been posted upon all the churches in 
Rome that on that day and in that church the 
officers of the Inquisition were to proclaim the 
result of their inquiries into the alleged heresies 
of Molinos ? To insure a large attendance and 
to give to the impending ceremonies as much as 
possible the air of a popular manifestation against 
the accused and his followers, the public had 
been also notified, several days before, that an 
indulgence would be accorded of fifteen years to 
all, and of forty years to some, who should assist 
at the ceremonies of this auto da fe. 

"It was a gala day for Rome and all its 
population, from the highest to the lowest, 
seemed to have been condensed within the walls 
of this famous church which resounded with the 
murmur of conversation, with the flutter of 
dresses and of fans, and which within the mem- 
ory of men then living had witnessed the humili- 
ation of Galileo. In the curiosity excited by 
every new or conspicuous arrival, in the gayety 
of the scene, in the pleasure of unexpected 
meetings and joyous greetings, in the quickened 



338 BROWNING'S ITALY 

wit and lively repartee, which are the familiar 
incidents of an unoccupied crowd, the occasion 
which had brought the assembly was almost 
forgotten. Suddenly the noise is hushed, the 
motion of fans is suspended and all eyes are 
directed towards a side door nearest the plat- 
form occupied by the Inquisitors. An aged 
monk, attended by an officer, was approaching 
with a slow and solemn pace. His hands in 
manacles were held in front of him. In one of 
them he bore a candle. With a self-possessed, 
though somewhat severe expression, he walked 
slowly towards the place assigned him by his 
attendant, fronting at once the cardinals and 
the Grand Inquisitors. 

"Molinos, the man upon whom now every 
eye in the vast and breathless assembly was 
fixed, was about sixty years of age. His frame 
was robust, his movement dignified and majestic. 
A settled expression of melancholy sat upon his 
face; his complexion was quite dark and his 
nose w^as both long and sharp. He wore the 
frock of his Order, descending to his heels and 
having the soiled and shabby look which daily 
use during nearly two years' confinement in 
prison sufficiently explained. The scene in 
which he bore so conspicuous a part seemed to 
find no reflection in his face. It expressed no 
emotion, but said in language more eloquent 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 339 

than words, 'This is your hour and the power 
of darkness.'" 

A letter written in Rome on the very day by 
Estiennot gives another hfehke ghmpse of this 
remarkable man: 

"Mohnos was conducted to the platform 
facing the cardinals and the tribunal of the 
Holy Office, consisting of consulting prelates, 
of the General of the Dominican Order, of the 
Commissioner, of some of the Qualifiers who 
qualified the propositions, and other agents of 
the Holy Office. Molinos stood with a police- 
man by his side, who from time to time wiped 
his face. In his hands which were manacled 
he held a burning candle. From the pulpit near 
the criminal, one of the fathers of St. Dominick 
read in a loud voice an abstract of the trial. 
It was observed that his face while this lasted, 
about three hours, as when he entered and left, 
was full of contempt and defiance, especially at 
the commotion of the people who as they heard 
the account of some of his graver villainies 
shouted boisterously, 'To the stake! to the 
stake!' During all this Molinos did not even 
change color, but made his feeling of contempt 
only the more conspicuous. 

"To the guard who bound and brought him 
through the street to the Holy Office he said 
that he was the special agent of God and that 



340 BROWNING'S ITALY 

he (the guard) would be punished. After the 
reading of the trial was over he was stripped of 
the long frock of the priest and clothed with 
the garment of penance with the cross on the 
back, showing through all the ceremony of 
excommunication his accustomed intrepidity and 
contempt. He was condemned to close con- 
finement for the rest of his life, to wear the 
garment of penance, with the cross on his breast, 
to confess four times a year, — at Christmas, 
Easter, Pentecost, and All Saints' Day, — and 
besides to recite the credo every day, a third 
part of the rosary and to meditate the mys- 
teries. All his writings, as well manuscript as 
printed, are proscribed under the heaviest pen- 
alties." 

Nothing more is known of Molinos, person- 
ally, except that he continued to drag out a 
solitary existence in the cell to which he was 
taken from the church and died in ten years on 
Holy Innocents' Day, December 28, 1696, in 
the seventieth year of his age. 

At the time of the episode related in "The 
Ring and the Book," 1692 or 93, the trial and 
condemnation of JMolinos would have been a 
thing of the past. His disciples alarmed by the 
movement against Quietism fell silent, every 
scrap of a letter or a paper that could be found 
was burned. The Jesuits followed up their 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 341 

advantage, and compelled every one suspected 
of harboring any leanings toward Molinos to 
join in the hue and cry against Quietism, which 
had been started by the rabble in the church 
of Minerva upon the memorable day of the 
trial. 

It is this atmosphere that comes out every- 
where in "The Ring and the Book." The 
characters one after another have their fling at 
Molinism. 

Take first from ** Half -Rome" the description 
of the placing of the dead bodies on view in the 
church, this sort of exhibition being a custom 
of the time. An old fellow who comes up to 
see the sight thinks that such deeds along with 
the sin of Molinism show the degeneracy of 
the time: 

" Sir, do you see, 
They laid both bodies in the church, this morn 
The first thing, on the chancel two steps up, 
Behind the little marble balustrade; 
Disposed them, Pietro the old murdered fool 
To the right of the altar, and his wretched wife 
On the other side. In trying to count stabs, 
People supposed Violante showed the most. 
Till somebody explained us that mistake; 
His wounds had been dealt out indifferent where. 
But she took all her stabbings in the face, 
Since punished thus solely for honor's sake. 
Honoris causa, that's the proper term. 
A delicacy there is, our gallants hold. 



342 BROWNING'S ITALY 

When you avenge your honor and only then. 

That you disfigure the subject, fray the face. 

Not just take hfe and end, in clownish guise. 

It was Violante gave the first offense, 

Got therefore the conspicuous punishment: 

While Pietro, who helped merely, his mere death 

Answered the purpose, so his face went free. 

We fancied even, free as you please, that face 

Showed itself still intolerably wronged; 

Was wrinkled over with resentment yet. 

Nor calm at all, as murdered faces use. 

Once the worst ended: an indignant air 

O' the head there was — 'tis said the body turned 

Round and away, rolled from Violante 's side 

Where they had laid it loving-husband-like. 

If so, corpses can be sensitive, 

Why did not he roll right down altar-step, 

Roll on through nave, roll fairly out of church. 

Deprive Lorenzo of the spectacle. 

Pay back thus the succession of affronts 

Whereto this church had served as theatre ? 

For see: at that same altar where he lies. 

To that same inch of step, was brought the babe 

For blessing after baptism, and there styled 

Pompilia, and a string of names beside. 

By his bad wife, some seventeen years ago. 

Who purchased her simply to palm on him. 

Flatter his dotage and defraud the heirs. 

Wait awhile! Also to this very step 

Did this Violante, twelve years afterward. 

Bring, the mock-mother, that child-cheat full-grown, 

Pompilia, in pursuance of her plot. 

And there brave God and man a second time 

By linking a new victim to the lie. 




Church of San Lorenzo, Rome. 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 343 

There, having made a match unknown to him, 
She, still unknown to Pietro, tied the knot 
Which nothing cuts except this kind of knife; 
Yes, made her daughter, as the girl was held, 
Marry a man, and honest man beside, 
And man of birth to boot, — clandestinely 
Because of this, because of that, because 
O' the devil's will to work his worst for once, — 
Confident she could top her part at need 
And, when her husband must be told in turn. 
Ply the wife's trade, play off the sex's trick 
And, alternating worry with quiet qualms. 
Bravado with submissiveness, prettily fool 
Her Pietro into patience: so it proved. 
Ay, 'tis four years since man and wife they grew, 
This Guido Franceschini and this same 
Pompilia, foolishly thought, falsely declared 
A Comparini and the couple's child: 
Just at this altar where beneath the piece 
Of Master Guido Reni, Christ on cross. 
Second to naught observable in Rome, 
That couple lie now, murdered yestereve. 
Even the blind can see a providence here. 

From dawn till now that it is growing dusk, 

A multitude has flocked and filled the church. 

Coming and going, coming back again. 

Till to count crazed one. Rome was at the show. 

People climbed up the columns, fought for spikes 

O' the chapel-rail to perch themselves upon. 

Jumped over and so broke the wooden work 

Painted like porphyry to deceive the eye; 

Serve the priests right! The organ-loft was crammed. 

Women were fainting, no few fights ensued. 



344 BROWNING'S ITALY 

In short, it was a show repaid your pains: 
For, though their room was scant undoubtedly, 
Yet they did manage matters, to be just, 
A little at this Lorenzo. Body o' me! 
I saw a body exposed once . . . never mind! 
Enough that here the bodies had their due. 
No stinginess in wax, a row all round. 
And one big taper at each head and foot. 

So, people pushed their way, and took their turn, 

Saw, threw their eyes up, crossed themselves, gave place 

To pressure from behind, since all the world 

Knew the old pair, could talk the tragedy 

Over from first to last: Pompilia too. 

Those who had known her — what 'twas worth to them ! 

Guido's acquaintance was in less request; 

The Count had lounged somewhat too long in Rome, 

Made himself cheap; with him were hand and glove 

Barbers and blear-eyed, as the ancient sings. 

Also he is alive and like to be: 

Had he considerately died, — aha! 

I jostled Luca Cini on his staff. 

Mute in the midst, the whole man one amaze, 

Staring amain, and crossing brow and breast. 

'How now.'^' asked I. *'Tis seventy years,' quoth he, 

'Since I first saw, holding my father's hand. 

Bodies set forth: a many have I seen, 

Yet all was poor to this I live and see. 

Here the world's wickedness seals up the sum: 

What with Molinos' doctrine and this deed, 

Antichrist surely comes and doomsday's near. 

May I depart in peace, I have seen my see.' 

'Depart then,' I advised, 'nor block the road 

For youngsters still behindhand with such sights!' 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 345 

'Why no,' rejoins the venerable sire, 

'I know it's horrid, hideous past behef, 

Burdensome far beyond what eye can bear; 

But they do promise when Pompiha dies 

I' the course o' the day, — and she can't outhve night, — 

They'll bring her body also to expose 

Beside the parents, one, two, three abreast; 

That were indeed a sight which, might I see, 

I trust I should not last to see the like!' 

Whereat I bade the senior spare his shanks. 

Since doctors give her till to-night to live. 

And tell us how the butchery happened. 'Ah, 

But you can't know!' sighs he, 'I'll not despair: 

Beside I'm useful at explaining things — 

As, how the dagger laid there at the feet. 

Caused the peculiar cuts: I mind its make. 

Triangular i' the blade, a Genoese, 

Armed with those Mttle hook-teeth on the edge 

To open in the flesh nor shut again: 

I hke to teach a novice: I shall stay!' 

And stay he did, and stay be sure he will." 

In contrast to this venerable man a bright 
young fellow, the curate, tells the crowd the 
story of the murder and declares such deeds to 
be the result of Molinos' tares sown for wheat. 
And having introduced the subject he seems to 
have enlarged upon it and the cardinal who 
wrote about it, probably referring to Cardinal 
d'Estrees, who wrote several books on Molinism. 

"A personage came by the private door 

At noon to have his look: I name no names: 



346 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Well then, His Eminence the Cardinal, 

Whose servitor in honorable sort 

Guido was once, the same who made the match, 

(Will you have the truth ?) whereof we see effect. 

No sooner whisper ran he was arrived 

Than up pops Curate Carlo, a brisk lad, 

Who never lets a good occasion slip. 

And volunteers improving the event. 

We looked he'd give the history's self some help, 

Treat us to how the wife's confession went 

(This morning she confessed her crime, we know) 

And, maybe, throw in something of the Priest — 

If he's not ordered back, punished anew, 

The gallant, Caponsacchi, Lucifer 

I' the garden where Pompilia, Eve-like, lured 

Her Adam Guido to his fault and fall. 

Think you we got a sprig of speech akin 

To this from Carlo with the Cardinal there ? 

Too wary he was, too widely awake, I trow. 

He did the murder in a dozen words; 

Then said that all such outrages crop forth 

I' the course of nature, when Molinos' tares 

Are sown for wheat, flourish and choke the Church: 

So shd on to the abominable sect 

And the philosophic sin — we've heard all that. 

And the Cardinal too, (who book-made on the same) 

But, for the murder, left it where he found. 

Oh but he's quick, the Curate, minds his game!'* 

"Half -Rome" shows us the scene at the 
Church of San Lorenzo. "The Other Half- 
Rome" shows us PompiKa, lying on her death- 
bed visited by the lawyers, by a confessor, by 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 347 

many who suddenly found themselves friends, 
and by an artist. Here again the thought of 
Molinism is ever present. The speaker de- 
scribes Pompilia as a miracle to tell these Molo- 
nists : 

"Another day that finds her living yet, 

Little Pompilia, with the patient brow 

And lamentable smile on those poor lips. 

And, under the white hospital-array, 

A flower-like body, to frighten at a bruise 

You'd think, yet now, stabbed through and through again 

Alive i' the ruins. 'T is a miracle. 

It seems that, when her husband struck her first. 

She prayed Madonna just that she might live 

So long as to confess and be absolved; 

And whether it was that, all her sad hfe long 

Never before successful in a prayer. 

This prayer rose with authority too dread, — 

Or whether, because earth was hell to her. 

By compensation, when the blackness broke 

She got one glimpse of quiet and the cool blue, 

To show her for a moment such things were, — 

Or else, — as the Augustinian Brother thinks. 

The friar who took confession from her hp, — 

When a probationary soul that moved 

From nobleness to nobleness, as she. 

Over the rough way of the world, succumbs. 

Bloodies its last thorn with unflinching foot. 

The angels love to do their work betimes, 

Stanch some wounds here nor leave so much for God. 

Who knows ? However it be, confessed, absolved, 

She lies, with overplus of hfe beside 



348 BROWNING'S ITALY 

To speak and right herself from first to last, 
Right the friend also, lamb-pure, lion-brave, 
Care for the boy's concerns, to save the son 
From the sire, her two-weeks' infant orphaned thus, 
And — with best smile of all reserved for him — 
Pardon that sire and husband from the heart. 
A miracle, so tell your Molinists!" 

There is some one at Pompilia's bedside also 
to explain the cause of such crimes on the score 
of Molinism. Possibly the same curate already 
met with at the church. 

"Somebody at the bedside said much more, 

Took on him to explain the secret cause 

O' the crime: quoth he, 'Such crimes are very rife, 

Explode nor make us wonder nowadays. 

Seeing that Antichrist disseminates 

That doctrine of the Philosophic Sin: 

Molinos* sect will soon make earth too hot!' 

'Nay,' groaned the Augustinian, 'what's there new? 

Crime will not fail to flare up from men's hearts 

While hearts are men's and so born criminal; 

Which one fact, always old yet ever new, 

Accounts for so much crime that, for my part, 

Molinos may go whistle to the wind 

That waits outside a certain church, you know!' 

Though really it does seem as if she here, 

Pompiha, living so and dying thus. 

Has had undue experience how much crime 

A heart can hatch. Why was she made to learn 

— ■ Not you, not I, not even Molinos' self — 

What Guido Franceschini's heart could hold ? 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 349 

Thus saintship is effected probably; 

No sparing saints the process! — which the more 

Tends to the reconcihng us, no saints. 

To sinnership, immunity and all." 

Guido, again, must bring Molinos into his 
argument by telling a piece of gossip about the 
Cardinal's tract which illustrates his ideas of 
the ways and means by which one may "get on" 
in life. The story is of a clown who 

*". . . dressed vines on somebody's estate 

His boy recoiled from muck, liked Latin more. 

Stuck to his pen and got to be a priest. 

Till one day . . . don't you mind that telling tract 

Against Molinos, the old Cardinal wrote? 

He penned and dropped it in the patron's desk, 

Who, deep in thought and absent much of mind. 

Licensed the thing, allowed it for his own; 

Quick came promotion, — suum cuique. Count! 

Oh, he can pay for coach and six, be sure!' 

' — Well, let me go, do likewise: war 's the word — 

That way the Franceschini worked at first, 

1*11 take my turn, try soldiership.' — 'What, you ? 

The eldest son and heir and prop o' the house. 

So do you see your duty ? Here's your post, 

Hard by the hearth and altar' (Roam from roof. 

This youngster, play the gypsy out of doors. 

And who keeps kith and kin that fall on us ?) 

Stand fast, stick tight, conserve your gods at home!' 

*Well — then, the quiet course, the contrary trade! 

We had a cousin amongst us once was Pope, 

And minor glories manifold. Try the Church, 

The tonsure, and, — since heresy's but half-slain 



350 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Even by the Cardinal's tract he thought he wrote, — 
Have at Molinos!' — 'Have at a fool's head! 
You a priest ? How were marriage possible ? 
There must be Franceschini till time ends — 
That's your vocation. Make your brothers priests, 
Paul shall be porporate, and Girolamo step 
Red-stockinged in the presence when you choose, 
But save one Franceschini for the age! 
Be not the vine but dig and dung its root, 
Be not a priest but gird up priesthood's loins, 
With one foot in Arezzo stride to Rome, 
Spend yourself there and bring the purchase back! 
Go hence to Rome, be guided!" 

Caponsacchi relates how he was told by the 
judges the priest's duty — to "labor to pluck 
tares and weed the corn of Molinism," and how 
when he, through the awakening influence of 
Pompilia, found his society life flat, stale and 
unprofitable and decided never, to write another 
canzonet, his patron spoke abrupt: 

"'Young man, can it be true 
That after all your promise to sound fruit. 
You have kept away from Countess young or old 
And gone play truant in church all day long? 
Are you turning Molinist ? ' 

I answered quick: 
'Sir, what if I turned Christian? It might be. 
The fact is I am troubled in my mind. 
Beset and pressed hard by some novel thoughts. 
This your Arezzo is a limited world; 
There's a strange Pope, — 'tis said, a priest who thinks. 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 351 

Rome is the port, you say: to Rome I go. 
I will live alone, one does so in a crowd. 
And look into my heart a httle.'" 

Pompilia, as one would expect, only quotes 
what the priest said in regard to Molinism. 

"'For see — 
If motherhood be qualified impure, 
I catch you making God command Eve sin! 
— A blasphemy so like these Molinists, 
I must suspect you dip into their books.' " 

Each of the lawyers refers to the Molinists. 
To illustrate his argument, Hyacinthus de 
Archangelis declares: 

"Yea, argue Molinists who bar revenge — 
Referring just to what makes out our case! 
Under old dispensation, argue they. 
The doom of the adulterous wife was death, 
Stoning by Moses' law." 

Bottinius, on the other hand, would like to 
impress the Molinists as he would every one 
else with his own importance: 

"Rome, that Rome whereof — this voice 
Would it might make our Molinists observe, 
That she is built upon a rock nor shall 
Their powers prevail against her! — Rome, I say. 
Is all but reached." 

From the references of these various characters 
to Molinism it would be quite impossible to 
discover the truth in regard to this sect. Each 



352 BROWNING'S ITALY 

one uses it as a stalking horse for any evil he 
wishes to account for or any opinion he wishes 
to combat. There could not be a better way of 
showing what a pervasive influence Molinism 
had become in the Roman world at the same 
time that, once having fallen under the ban of 
the Church, all sorts of lies about its tenets 
would gain credence. 

Browning, however, has been clever enough 
to show the influence for good in the ideas of 
Molinos, indirectly in the independent and en- 
lightened vision of Caponsacchi and Pompilia 
and directly in a passage in the "Pope," where 
the Pope says : 

" Must we deny, — do they, these Molinists, 
At peril of their body and their soul, — 
Recognized truths, obedient to some truth 
Unrecognized yet, but perceptible ? — 
Correct the portrait by the hving face, 
Man's God, by God's God in the mind of man ? 
Then, for the few that rise to the new height. 
The many that must sink to the old depth 
The multitude found fall away! A few. 
E'en ere new law speak clear, may keep the old, 
Preserve the Christian level, call good good 
And evil evil, (even though razed and blank 
The old titles,) helped by custom, habitude, 
And all else they mistake for finer sense 
O' the fact that reason warrants, — as before, 
They hope perhaps, fear not impossibly." 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 353 

"Here comes the first experimentalist 
In the new order of things, — he plays a priest; 
Does he take inspiration from the Church, 
Directly make her rule his law of life ? 
Not he : his own mere impulse guides the man — 
Happily sometimes, since ourselves allow 
He has danced, in gayety of heart, 'i the main 
The right step through the maze we bade him foot. 
But if his heart had prompted him break loose 
And mar the measure ? Why, we must submit. 
And thank the chance that brought him safe so far, 
Will he repeat the prodigy ? Perhaps. 
Can he teach others how to quit themselves. 
Show why this step was right while that were wrong ? 
How should he ? *Ask your hearts as I ask mine. 
And get discreetly through the Morrice too; 
If your hearts misdirect you, — quit the stage, 
And make amends, — be there amends to make!'" 

This lenient attitude toward impulse, espe- 
cially such an impulse as that of Caponsacchi's, 
in saving Pompilia by flying with her to Rome, 
and so outraging churchly and social proprieties, 
shows the influence of the teachings of Molinos 
in regard to sin not having any effect upon the 
soul, which might safely be left in the hands of 
God. The whole passage is really an interpre- 
tation on the part of the poet indicating that 
the sins Molinos thought unimportant were 
really the sins against imperfect human concep- 
tions of right and wrong, and that these im- 
perfect conceptions of right and wrong could 



354 BROWNING'S ITALY 

only be changed to something better by follow- 
ing human vision without regard to the Church. 
Pompilia reaches the greatest height in her at- 
titude toward sin in her forgiveness of Guido : 

"We shall not meet in this world nor the next. 
But where will God be absent ? In His face 
Is light, but in His shadow healing too: 
Let Guido touch the shadow and be healed! 

Nothing about me but drew somehow down 
His hate upon me, — somewhat so excused 
Therefore, since hate was thus the truth of him, — 
May my evanishment for evermore 
Help further to relieve the heart that cast 
Such object of its natural loathing forth! 
So he was made; he nowise made himself: 
I could not love him, but his mother did. 

Whatever he touched is rightly ruined : plague 
It caught, and disinfection it had craved 
Still but for Guido; I am saved through him 
So as by fire; to him — thanks and farewell!" 

We may add to this pervasive atmosphere of 
the time that envelops the poem, a few special 
illustrations of customs which were then rife. 
The resort to torture to extract truth from 
criminals was still practised and Guido gives 
graphically his experience of the torture to 
which he was subjected: 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 355 

"Thanks, Sir, but, should it please the reverend Court, 
I feel I can stand somehow, half sit down 
Without help, make shift to even speak, you see, 
Fortified by the sip of . . . why, 't is wine, 
VeUetri, — and not vinegar and gall, 
So changed and good the times grow! Thanks, kind Sir! 
Oh, but one sip's enough! I want my head 
To save my neck, there's work awaits me still. 
How cautious and considerate . . . aie, aie, aie. 
Nor your fault, sweet Sir! Come, you take to heart 
An ordinary matter. Law is law. 
Noblemen were exempt, the vulgar thought, 
From racking; but, since law thinks otherwise, 
I have been put to the rack: all's over now. 
And neither wrist — what men style, out of joint: 
If any harm be, 'tis the shoulder-blade, 
The left one, that seems wrong i' the socket, — Sirs, 
Much could not happen, I was quick to faint. 
Being past my prime of life, and out of health. 
In short, I thank you, — yes, and mean the word. 
Needs must the Court be slow to understand 
How this quite novel form of taking pain, 
This getting tortured merely in the flesh, 
Amounts to almost an agreeable change 
In my case, me fastidious, plied too much 
With opposite treatment, used (forgive the joke) 
To the rasp-tooth toying with this brain of mine. 
And, in and out my heart, the play o' the probe. 
Four years have I been operated on 
I' the soul, do you see — its tense or tremulous part — 
My self-respect, my care for a good name. 
Pride in an old one, love of kindred — just 
A mother, brothers, sisters, and the like. 
That looked up to my face when days were dim. 



356 BROWNING'S ITALY 

And fancied they found light there — no one spot. 
Foppishly sensitive, but has paid its pang. 
That, and not this you now oblige me with, 
That was the Vigil-torment, if you please!" 

Caponsacchi's account of his life reveals what 
the life of a priest at that time might be, without 
arousing criticism on the part of the Church. 
The slackness was due to Jesuitical influence. 
They winked at anything by means of which 
they could serve their own ambitions for the 
aggrandizement of their order. 

"I begin. 
Yes, I am one of your body and a priest. 
Also I am a younger son o' the House 
Oldest now, greatest once, in my birth-town 
Arezzo, I recognize no equal there — 
(I want all arguments, all sorts of arms 
That seem to serve, — use this for a reason, wait!) 
Not therefore thrust into the Church, because 
O' the piece of bread one gets there. We were first 
Of Fiesole, that rings still with the fame 
Of Capo-in-Sacco our progenitor: 
When Florence ruined Fiesole, our folk 
Migrated to the victor-city, and there 
Flourished, — our palace and our tower attest. 
In the Old Mercato, — this was years ago, 
Four hundred, full, — no, it wants fourteen just. 
Our arms are those of Fiesole itself. 
The shield quartered with white and red: a branch 
Are the Salviati of us, nothing more. 
That were good help to the Church ? But better still — 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 357 

Not simply for the advantage of my birth 

I' the way of the world, was I proposed for priest; 

But because there's an illustration, late 

I' the day, that's loved and looked to as a saint 

Still in Arezzo, he was bishop of, 

Sixty years since: he spent to the last doit 

His bishop 's-revenue among the poor, 

And used to tend the needy and the sick, 

Barefoot, because of his humility. 

He it was, — when the Granduke Ferdinand 

Swore he would raze our city, plough the place 

And sow it with salt, because we Aretines 

Had tied a rope about the neck, to hale 

The statue of his father from its base 

For hate's sake, — he availed by prayers and tears 

To pacify the Duke and save the town. 

This was my father's father's brother. You see. 

For his sake, how it was I had a right 

To the selfsame office, bishop in the egg. 

So, grew i' the garb and prattled in the school, 

Was made expect, from infancy almost, 

The proper mood o' the priest; till time ran by 

And brought the day when I must read the vows, 

Declare the world renounced, and undertake 

To become priest and leave probation, — leap 

Over the ledge into the other life, 

Having gone trippingly hitherto up to the height 

O'er the wan water. Just a vow to read! 

I stopped short awe-struck. *How shall holiest flesh 
Engage to keep such vow inviolate. 
How much less mine ? I know myself too weak, 
Unworthy! Choose a worthier stronger man!* 
And the very Bishop smiled and stopped my mouth 



358 BROWNING'S ITALY 

In its mid-protestation. ' Incapable ? 

Qualmish of conscience ? Thou ingenuous boy! 

Clear up the clouds and cast thy scruples far! 

I satisfy thee there's an easier sense 

Wherein to take such vow than suits the first 

Rough rigid reading. Mark what makes all smooth, 

Nay, has been even a solace to myself! 

The Jews who needs must, in their sjnagogue. 

Utter sometimes the holy name of God, 

A thing their superstition boggles at. 

Pronounce aloud the ineffable sacrosanct, — 

How does their shrewdness help them ? In this wise; 

Another set of sounds they substitute. 

Jumble so consonants and vowels — how 

Should I know ? — that there grows from out the old 

Quite a new word that means the very same — 

And o'er the hard place slide they with a smile. 

Giuseppe Maria Caponsacchi mine. 

Nobody wants you in these latter days 

To prop the Church by breaking your backbone, — 

As the necessary way was once, we know. 

When Diocletian flourished and his like. 

That building of the buttress-work was done 

By martyrs and confessors; let it bide, 

Add not a brick, but, where you see a chink. 

Stick in a sprig of ivy or root a rose 

Shall make amends and beautify the pile! 

We profit as you were the painfullest 

O' the martyrs, and you prove yourself a match 

For the cruellest confessor ever was. 

If you march boldly up and take your stand 

Where their blood soaks, their bones yet strew the soil. 

And cry 'Take notice, I the young and free 

And well-to-do i' the world, thus leave the world. 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 359 

Cast in my lot thus with no gay young world 

But the grand old Church: she tempts me of the two!* 

Renounce the world ? Nay, keep and give it us! 

Let us have you, and boast of what you bring. 

We want the pick o' the earth to practise with, 

Not its oflfscouring, halt and deaf and blind 

In soul and body. There's a rubble-stone 

Unfit for the front o' the building, stuff to stow 

In a gap behind and keep us weather-tight; 

There 's porphyry for the prominent place. Good lack! 

Saint Paul has had enough and to spare, I trow. 

Of ragged runaway Onesimus: 

He wants the right-hand with the signet-ring 

Of King Agrippa, now, to shake and use. 

I have a heavy scholar cloistered up, 

Close under lock and key, kept at his task ^ 

Of letting Fenelon know the fool he is, 

In a book I promise Christendom next Spring. 

Why, if he covets so much meat, the clown, 

As a lark's wing next Friday, or, any day, 

Diversion beyond catching his own fleas. 

He shall be properly swinged, I promise him. 

But you, who are so quite another paste 

Of a man, — do you obey me ? Cultivate 

Assiduous that superior gift you have 

Of making madrigals — (who told me ? Ah! 

Get done a Marinesque Adoniad straight 

With a pulse o' the blood a-pricking here and there. 

That I may tell the lady, 'And he's ours!'" 

So I became a priest: those terms changed all, 
I was good enough for that, nor cheated so; 
I could live thus and still hold head erect. 
Now you see why I may have been before 



360 BROWNING'S ITALY 

A fribble and coxcomb, yet, as priest, break word 

Nowise, to make you disbelieve me now. 

I need that you should know my truth. Well, then. 

According to prescription did I live, 

— Conformed myself, both read the breviary 

And wrote the rhymes, was punctual to my place 

I' the Pi eve, and as diligent at my post 

Where beauty and fashion rule. I throve apace. 

Sub-deacon, Canon, the authority 

For delicate play at tarocs, and arbiter 

O' the magnitude of fan-mounts: all the while 

Wanting no whit the advantage of a hint 

Benignant to the promising pupil, — thus: 

'Enough attention to the Countess now. 

The young one; 't is her mother rules the roast, 

We know where, and puts in a word: go pay 

Devoir to-morrow morning after mass! 

Break that rash promise to preach, Passion-week! 

Has it escaped you the Archbishop grunts 

And snufHes when one grieves to tell his Grace 

No soul dares treat the subject of the day 

Since his own masterly handling it (lia, ha!) 

Five years ago, — when somebody could help 

And touch up an odd phrase in time of need, 

(He, he!) — and somebody helps you, my son! 

Therefore, don't prove so indispensable 

At the Pi eve, sit more loose i' the seat, nor grow 

A fixture by attendance morn and eve! 

Arezzo's just a haven midway Rome — 

Rome's the eventual harbor — make for port, 

Crowd sail, crack cordage! And your cargo be 

A polished presence, a genteel manner, wit 

At will, and tact at every pore of you! 

I sent our lump of learning, Brother Clout, 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 361 

And Father Slouch, our piece of piety, 

To see Rome and try suit the Cardinal. 

Thither they clump-clumped, beads and book in hand. 

And ever since 'tis meat for man and maid 

How both flopped down, prayed blessing on bent pate 

Bald many an inch beyond the tonsure's need. 

Never once dreaming, the two moony dolts. 

There's nothing moves his Eminence so much 

As — far from all this awe at sanctitude — 

Heads that wag, eyes that twinkle, modified mirth 

At the closet-lectures on the Latin tongue 

A lady learns so much by, we know where. 

Why, body o' Bacchus, you should crave his rule 

For pauses in the elegiac couplet, chasms 

Permissible only to Catullus! There! 

Now go to duty: brisk, break Priscian's head 

By reading the day's office — there's no help. 

You've Ovid in your poke to plaster that; 

Ameii's at the end of all: then sup with me!' 

Well, after three or four years of this life, 

In prosecution of my calling, I 

Found myself at the theatre one night 

With a brother Canon, in a mood and mind 

Proper enough for the place, amused or no: 

When I saw enter, stand, and seat herself 

A lady, young, tall, beautiful, strange and sad. 

It was as when, in our cathedral once, 

As I got yawningly through matin-song, 

I saw facchini bear a burden up, 

Base it on the high-altar, break away 

A board or two, and leave the thing inside 

Lofty and lone: and lo, when next I looked, 

There was the Rafael! I was still one stare, 



362 BROWNING'S ITALY 

When — *Nay, I'll make her give you back your gaze' — 

Said Canon Conti; and at the word he tossed 

A paper-twist of comfits to her lap. 

And dodged and in a trice was at my back 

Nodding from over my shoulder. Then she turned, 

Looked our way, smiled the beautiful sad strange smile." 

Pompilia's view of the Carnival will be an 
exquisite passage to close the glimpses of seven- 
teenth century Italy, given in "The Ring and 
the Book:" 

"I had been miserable three drear years 
In that dread palace and lay passive now. 
When I first learned there could be such a man. 
Thus it fell: I was at a public play. 
In the last days of Carnival last March, 
Brought there I knew not why, but now know well. 
My husband put me where I sat, in front; 
Then crouched down, breathed cold through me from 

behind, 
Stationed i' the shadow, — none in front could see, — 
I, it was, faced the stranger-throng beneath, 
The crowd with upturned faces, eyes one stare, 
Voices one buzz. I looked but to the stage, 
Whereon two lovers sang and interchanged 
*True life is only love, love only bliss: 
I love thee — thee I love ! ' then they embraced. 
I looked thence to the ceiling and the walls, — 
Over the crowd, those voices and those eyes, — 
My thoughts went through the roof and out, to Rome 
On wings of music, waft of measured words, — 
Set me down there, a happy child again. 
Sure that to-morrow would be festa day. 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 363 

Hearing my parents praise past festas more. 
And seeing they were old if I was young, 
Yet wondering why they still would end discourse 
With *We must soon go, you abide your time. 
And, — might we haply see the proper friend 
Throw his arm over you and make you safe!* 
Sudden I saw him; into my lap there fell 
A foolish twist of comfits, broke my dream 
And brought me from the air and laid me low. 
As ruined as the soaring bee that's reached 
(So Pietro told me at the Villa once) 
By the dust-handful. There the comfits lay: 
I looked to see who flung them, and I faced 
This Caponsacchi, looking up in turn. 
Ere I could reason out why>, I felt sure. 
Whoever flung them, his was not the hand, — 
Up rose the round face and good-natured grin 
Of one who, in effect, had played the prank. 
From covert close beside the earnest face, — 
Fat waggish Conti, friend of all the world. 
He was my husband's cousin, privileged 
To throw the thing: the other, silent, grave. 
Solemn almost, saw me, as I saw him." 

A characteristic episode of Renaissance Italy 
is shown in "The Statue and the Bust," in 
which there is the usual jealous husband and 
a lover. The husband in this case vindicates 
sixteenth century notions of authority by sub- 
jecting his wife to lifelong imprisonment and 
lifelong torture. He places her in a room where 
she can see her lover pass daily. She plans to 
escape and join the lover, he plans to carry her 



364 BROWNING'S ITALY 

off, but day by day something prevents; their 
whole life passes and nothing is accomplished; 
oAly his statue in the square and her bust in 
the window tell of their love. The legend is 
connected with the Statue of Duke Ferdinand I 
of Florence, whose equestrian statue, executed 
by the sculptor John of Douay, was placed by 
him in the Piazza dell Annunciata so that he 
might forever gaze toward the old Riccardi 
palace where the lady lived. 

Confusion sometimes arises because of the 
fact that the Riccardi Palace in the Piazza dell 
Annunciata where the lady lived is now the 
Palazzo Antinori, while the palace now known 
as the Riccardi was then the Medici Palace, 
where the Duke lived. It is in the Via Larga 
and Browning refers to it as "the pile which 
the mighty shadow mak>es," a shadow not 
merely of bulk, but because of its connection 
with the name of Medici, the family who in 
the person of Cosimo and Lorenzo committed 
the crime of destroying the political liberty of 
Florence. Browning uses the story merely as 
a fable upon which to hang a moral. That 
moral has caused a good deal of discussion 
among Browning students and any one who cares 
to decide upon the pros and cons of the matter 
may follow it up in the various books of Browning 
criticism. 




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PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 365 

The remaining poems to be considered in this 
pleasant search for the historical, artistic, and 
social aspects of Italian life which Browning has 
chosen to draw upon in his work, carry us for 
the first time to Venice, whose history furnishes 
one of the most interesting and instructive 
chapters in the fascinating labyrinth of Italy's 
political and social growth. 

"In a Gondola" belongs to that Venice which 
had lost its early liberties. The history of 
Venice is that of a gradual evolution into a 
Republic of an oligarchical form. The struggles 
of the Doges in the first place to convert them- 
selves into hereditary princes caused a curtail- 
ment of their power until they became little more 
than symbols of the state. The general assem- 
bly of the people who elected the Doge and 
from among whom the Doge invited councillors 
to advise him, was changed to an elected assem- 
bly of four hundred and eighty members holding 
office for a year. Finally the people were 
disfranchised altogether and the Great Council 
elected and chose by lot according to its own 
sweet will, though it must be said that its will 
was to guard elections with the most compli- 
cated red-tapism. Next a Council of Ten is 
evolved, the Great Council being too cumbrous 
to manage special affairs. Lastly a Council of 
Three, elected from the Ten, and these councils 



366 BROWNING'S ITALY 

between them wielded autocratic power and 
became the engines of the horrible injustices and 
cruelties so often secretly perpetrated in the 
palmy days of Venice. The Three w^ere espe- 
cially invested with inquisitorial powers which 
they exercised in spying into the morals of the 
Venetian subjects, and as these morals were 
similar to those of the rest of Italy at that time 
they soon rendered themselves hateful to a cor- 
rupt nobility. The story of "In a Gondola" is 
a typical example of the romantic episodes of 
the time. In it the lover refers to the "Three" 
more than once, by which he probably meant 
the ladies' relations, husband and brothers per- 
haps — Gian, Paul, Himself, but the speaking 
of them as the "Three," by which name the 
Council of Three was always designated, is too 
significant in the connection for Browning not 
to have had in mind these inquisitorial guards 
of morality and he probably wished to imply 
that the Lover had them in mind also. 

IN A GONDOLA 

He sings. 
I SEND my heart up to thee, all my heart 

In this my singing. 
For the stars help me, and the sea bears part; 

The very night is clinging 
Closer to Venice* streets to leave one space 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 367 

Above me, whence thy face 
May light my joyous heart to thee its dwelling-place. 

She speaks. 
Say after me, and try to say 
My very words, as if each word 
Came from you of your own accord. 
In your own voice, in your own way: 
"This woman's heart and soul and brain 
Are mine as much as this gold chain 
She bids me wear; which" (say again) 
"I choose to make by cherishing 
A precious thing, or choose to fling 
Over the boat-side, ring by ring." 
And yet once more say ... no word more! 
Since words are only words. Give o'er! 

Unless you call me, all the same. 

Familiarly by my pet name, 

Which if the Three should hear you call, 

And me reply to, would proclaim 

At once our secret to them all. 

Ask of me, too, command me, blame — 

Do, break down the partition-wall 

'Twixt us, the daylight world beholds 

Curtained in dusk and splendid folds! 

What's left but — all of me to take ? 

I am the Three's; prevent them, slake 

Your thirst! 'Tis said, the Arab sage, 

In practising with gems, can loose 

Their subtle spirit in his cruce 

And leave but ashes: so, sweet mage, 

Leave them my ashes when thy use 

Sucks out my soul, thy heritage! 



368 BROWNING'S ITALY 

He sings. 
Past we glide, and past, and past! 

What's that poor Agnese doing 
Where they make the shutters fast? 

Gray Zanobi's just a-wooing 
To his couch the purchased bride: 

Past we glide! 

Past we glide, and past, and past! 

Why's the Pucci Palace flaring 
Like a beacon to the blast ? 

Guests by hundreds, not one caring 
If the dear host's neck were wried: 

Past we ghde! 

She sings. 
The moth's kiss, first! 
Kiss me as if you made believe 
You were not sure, this eve, 
How my face, your flower, had pursed 
Its petals up; so, here and there 
You brush it, till I grow aware 
Who wants me, and wide ope I burst. 

The bee's kiss, now! 
Kiss me as if you entered gay 
My heart at some noonday, 
A bud that dares not disallow 
The claim, so all is rendered up. 
And passively its shattered cup 
Over your head to sleep I bow. 

He sings. 
What are we two ? 
I am a Jew. 




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PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 369 

And carry thee, farther than friends can pursue. 

To a feast of our tribe; 

Where they need thee to bribe 

The devil that blasts them unless he imbibe 

Thy . . . Scatter the vision forever! And now, 

As of old, I am I, thou art thou! 

Say again, what we are ? 

The sprite of a star, 

I lure thee above where the destinies bar 

My plumes their full play 

Till a ruddier ray 

Than my pale one announce there is withering away 

Some . . . Scatter the vision forever! And now. 

As of old, I am I, thou art thou! 

He muses. 
Oh, which were best, to roam or rest? 
The land's lap or the water's breast? 
To sleep on yellow millet-sheaves. 
Or swim in lucid shallows just 
Eluding water-lily leaves, 
An inch from Death's black fingers, thrust 
To lock you, whom release he must; 
Which life were best on Summer eves ? 

He spcaJcs, musing. 
Lie back; could thought of mine improve you? 
From this shoulder let there spring 
A wing; from this, another wing; 
Wings, not legs and feet, shall move you! 
Snow-white must they spring, to blend 
With your flesh, but I intend 
They shall deepen to the end. 



370 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Broader, into burning gold, 
Till both wings crescent-wise enfold 
Your perfect self, from 'neath your feet 
To o'er your head, where lo, they meet 
As if a million sword-blades hurled 
Defiance from you to the world! 

Rescue me thou, the only real! 
And scare away this mad ideal 
That came, nor motions to depart! 
Thanks! Now, stay ever as thou art! 

Still he muses. 
What if the Three should catch at last 
Thy serenader ? While there's cast 
Paul's cloak about my head, and fast 
Gian pinions me, Himself has past 
His stylet through my back; I reel; 
And ... is it thou I feel? 
They trail me, these three godless knaves. 
Past every church that saints and saves. 
Nor stop till, where the cold sea raves 
By Lido's wet accursed graves. 
They scoop mine, roll me to its brink. 
And ... on thy breast I sink! 

She replies, musing. 
Dip your arm o'er the boat-side, elbow-deep, 
As I do: thus: were death so unlike sleep. 
Caught this way ? Death's to fear from flame or steel. 
Or poison doubtless; but from water — feel! 

Go find the bottom! Would you stay me? There! 
Now pluck a great blade of that ribbon-grass 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 371 

To plait in where the foohsh jewel was, 

I flung away: since you have praised my hair, 

'T is proper to be choice in what I wear. 

He speaks. 
Row home ? must we row home ? Too surely 
Know I where its front's demurely 
Over the Giudecca piled; 
Window just with window mating, 
Door on door exactly waiting. 
All's the set face of a child: 
But behind it, where 's a trace 
Of the staidness and reserve. 
And formal lines without a curve, 
In the same child's playing-face ? 
No two windows look one way 
O'er the small sea-water thread 
Below them. Ah, the autumn day 
I, passing, saw you overhead! 
First, out a cloud of curtain blew. 
Then a sweet cry, and last came you — 
To catch your lory that must needs 
Escape just then, of all times then. 
To peck a tall plant's fleecy seeds, 
And make me happiest of men. 
I scarce could breathe to see you reach 
So far back o'er the balcony 
To catch him ere he climbed too high 
Above you in the Smyrna peach, 
That quick the round smooth cord of gold, 
This coiled hair on your head, unrolled. 
Fell down you like a gorgeous snake 
The Roman girls were wont, of old. 
When Rome there was, for coolness* sake 



372 BROWNING'S ITALY 

To let lie curling o'er their bosoms. 
Dear lory, may his beak retain 
Ever its delicate rose stain 
As if the wounded lotus-blossoms 
Had marked their thief to know again! 

Stay longer yet, for other's sake 

Than mine! What should your chamber do? 

— With all its rarities that ache 

In silence while day lasts, but wake 

At night-time and their life renew, 

Suspended just to pleasure you 

Who brought against their will together 

These objects and, while day lasts, weave 

Around them such a magic tether 

That dumb they look: your harp, believe. 

With all the sensitive tight strings 

Which dare not speak, now to itself 

Breathes slumberously, as if some elf 

Went in and out the chords, his wings 

Make murmur wheresoe'er they graze. 

As an angel may, between the maze 

Of midnight palace-pillars, on 

And on, to sow God's plagues, have gone 

Through guilty glorious Babylon. 

And while such murmurs flow, the nymph 

Bends o'er the harp-top from her shell 

As the dry limpet for the lymph 

Come with a tune he knows so well. 

And how your statues' hearts must swell! 

And how your pictures must descend 

To see each other, friend with friend! 

Oh, could you take them by surprise, 

You'd find Schidone's eager Duke 




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PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 373 

Doing the quaintest courtesies 

To that prim saint by Haste-thee-Luke! 

And, deeper into her rock den, 

Bold Castelfranco's Magdalen 

You'd find retreated from the ken 

Of that robed counsel-keeping Ser — 

As if the Tizian thinks of her, 

And is not, rather, gravely bent 

On seeing for himself what toys 

Are these, his progeny invent. 

What litter now the board employs 

Whereon he signed a document 

That got him murdered! Each enjoys 

Its night so well, you cannot break 

The sport up, so, indeed must make 

More stay with me, for others* sake. 

She speaks. 
To-morrow, if a harp-string, say, 
Is used to tie the jasmine back 
That overfloods my room with sweets. 
Contrive your Zorzi somehow meets 
My Zanze! If the ribbon's black. 
The Three are watching: keep away! 

Your gondola — let Zorzi wreathe 

A mesh of water-weeds about 

Its prow, as if he unaware 

Had struck some quay or bridge-foot stair! 

That I may throw a paper out 

As you and he go underneath. 

There's Zanze*s vigiliant taper; safe are we. 
Only one minute more to-night with me ? 



374 BROWNING'S ITALY 

Resume your past self of a month ago! 

Be you the bashful gallant, I will be 

The lady with the colder breast than snow. 

Now bow you, as becomes, nor touch my hand 

More than I touch yours when I step to land. 

And say, "All thanks, Siora!" — 

Heart to heart 
And lips to lips! Yet once more, ere we part, 
Clasp me and make me thine, as mine thou art! 

He is surprised^ and stabbed. 
It was ordained to be so, sweet! — and best 
Comes now, beneath thine eyes, upon thy breast. 
Still kiss me! Care not for the cowards! Care 
Only to put aside thy beauteous hair 
My blood will hurt! The Three, I do not scorn 
To death, because they never lived: but I 
Have lived indeed,and so — (yet one more kiss) — can die!" 

A "Toccata of Galuppi's" takes us farther 
along the road of the poHtical and social degen- 
eracy of Venice, when she had arrived at a 
point where it was necessary to dance to keep 
her courage up. The picture given by Horatio 
E. Brown in his "Sketch of Venice" parallels 
remarkably that conjured up in the poet's mind 
by the cold, dead music of Galuppi. He writes: 

"The decline of the Republic, the failure of 
her vital force, did not interrupt the flow of 
pleasure nor check the flaunting glories of the 
civic state. Amusement, ease of life, when busi- 
ness and battles were over was still sought for 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 375 

and found. The political effacement of the 
Republic and the rigid prohibition of politics as 
a topic, left Venetian society with little but the 
trivialities of life to engage the attention. The 
Illustrissimi, in periwig and crimson cloak and 
sword sauntered on the Liston, at the foot of 
the Campanile, in the square. The ladies over 
their chocolate tore each others characters to 
shreds. They might discuss w4th ribald tongues 
the eccentric tastes of the great Procuratore 
Andrea Trou, but if they ventured to suggest a 
remedy for financial embarrassments, if they 
dared to contemplate a reform, deportation to 
Verona stared them in the face. And so life 
was limited to the Liston, the cafe, the casino, 
to a first night at the Teatro San Moise or San 
Sarunele, to a cantata at the Mendicante, the 
Pieta or Incurabili. Their excitements w^ere 
scandal and gambling, varied by the interest 
that might be aroused by a battle-royal between 
Goldoni and Lozzi, or the piquant processo of 
Piu Antonio Graturol. Sometimes the whole 
city would be thrown into a flutter by the arrival 
of some princes incogniti like the counts of the 
North, when the ladies would put on their finest 
dresses, and fight with each other outside the 
royal box for the honor of presentation. 

"Tripolo painted their houses with hues as 
delicate, evanescent, aerial as the miracle of a 



376 BROWNING'S ITALY 

sirocco day on the lagoon; Longhi depicted 
their Hves in the Ridotto, in the parlor of a 
convent, in the alcove; Chiusi, Goldoni, Gozzi, 
Buratti,or Baffo wrote for them ; Galuppi, Jouelli, 
Hasse, Faustina, Bordone, made music to them 
in their conservatories. There was taste — 
though rococo ; there was wit — though mali- 
cious, in their salons, where the cicisbeo and the 
abbatino ruffled their laces, toyed with tea cups, 
learned to carry their hat upon their hip while 
leaning on the back of a lady's chair. An easy, 
elegant, charming life the Venetians spent in 
their beautiful chambers, stuccoed in low relief 
and tinted with mauve and lemon, with pistaccio 
green and salmon; there they read their Baffo, 
their Buratti, their Calmo; and thence late at 
night, or rather in the early morning, they were 
wont to pass across the lagoon to the Lido, 
where they made a matutinal supper and paid 
their orisons to the rising sun." 

The causes for this sinking of a great state 
into the slough of incompetence and frivolity 
were to be found in the raising of that three- 
headed hydra of destruction, ambition, pros- 
perity, and the consequent arousing of envy. 
Ambition led Venice to extend her dominions 
beyond her lagoons to the mainland, prosperity 
brought upon her responsibilities as a great 
nation (the war with the Turks, for example,) 




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PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 377 

which she could not sustain single-handed ; and 
envy set the other states of Italy upon her, for 
as one writer says, while the Republic was act- 
ually hurling headlong to ruin, the outward 
pomp, the glory, the splendor of her civilization 
were for the first time attracting the eyes of 
Europe. There is something splendid as well 
as pitiful about the manner in which Venice, 
with all her wantonness and her frivolity, put up 
a brave front to the w^orld and gave up at last 
only to the all-devouring grasp of Napoleon. 
Browning finds a deeper reason for the decay 
of Venice in her lack of spiritual aspiration, 
which is reflected only too surely in the dead- 
ness of Galuppi's music. The fires of the 
Renaissance had burned out because of the 
smoke of selfish ambition that had become 
mingled with the flame. 

A, TOCCATA OF GALUPPI'S 

I 

Oh Galuppi, Baldassaro, this is very sad to find! 

I can hardly misconceive you ; it would prove me deaf and 

blind; 
But although I take your meaning, 'tis with such a heavy 

mind! 

II 

Here you come with your old music, and here's all the 
good it brings. 



378 BROWNING'S ITALY 

What, they lived once thus at Venice where the merchants 

were the kings, 
Where Saint Mark's is, where the Doges used to wed the 

sea with rings ? 

Ill 

Ay, because the sea's the street there; and 'tis arched by 

.... what you call 
.... Shylock's bridge with houses on it, where they 

kept the Carnival. 
I was never out of England — it's as if I saw it all. 

IV 

Did young people take their pleasure when the sea was 
warm in May? 

Balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to mid- 
day, 

When they made up fresh adventures for the morrow, do 
you say? 

V 

Was a lady such a lady, cheeks so round and lips so red, — 
On her neck the small face buoyant, like a bell-flower on 

its bed. 
O'er the breast's superb abundance where a man might 

base his head ? 

VI 

Well, and it was graceful of them — they'd break talk off 

and afford 
— She, to bite her mask's black velvet — he, to finger on 

his sword. 
While you sat and played Toccatas, stately at the clavi- 
chord ? 



PICTURES OF SOCIAL LIFE 379 

VII 

What ? Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths diminished, 
sigh on sigh, 

Told them something? Those suspensions, those solu- 
tions — "Must we die ?" 

Those commiserating sevenths — " Life might last! we can 
but try!" 

VIII 

*'Were you happy?" — "Yes." — "And are you still 
as happy ? " — "Yes. And you ? " 

— "Then, more kisses!" — "Did I stop them, when a 
million seemed so few?" 

Hark, the dominant's persistence till it must be answered 
to! 

IX 

So, an octave struck the answer. Oh, they praised you, 

I dare say! 
"Brave Galuppi! that was music! good alike at grave and 

gay! 
I can always leave off talking when I hear a master play ! " 

X 

Then they left you for their pleasure: till in due time, one 

by one, 
Some with lives that came to nothing, some with deeds as 

well undone. 
Death stepped tacitly and took them where they never 

see the sun. 

XI 

But when I sit down to reason, think to take my stand nor 

swerve. 
While I triumph o*er a secret wrung from nature's close 

reserve, 



380 BROWNING'S ITALY 

In you come with your cold music till I creep thro' every 
nerve. 

XII 

Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house 

was burned: 
"Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what 

Venice earned. 
The soul, doubtless, is immortal — where a soul can be 

discerned. 

XIII- 

"Yours for instance: you know physics, something of 
geology. 

Mathematics are your pastime; souls shall rise in their 
degree: 

Butterflies may dread extinction, — you'll not die, it can- 
not be! 

XIV 

"As for Venice and her people, merely born to bloom and 

drop, 
Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly 

were the crop: 
What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to 

stop? 

XV 

"Dust and ashes!" So you creak it, and I want the heart 

to scold. 
Dear dead women, with such hair, too — what's become 

of all the gold 
Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and 

grown old. 



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